But his outlook has changed over the past three years as a surge in oil drilling has transformed Glasscock County, where he lives.
โTheyโve totally ruined our way of life here,โ Seidenberger said. โI donโt know if Iโll ever get over it.โ
His sentiments sum up how many residents throughout the county view the drilling boom, despite the boost it has given to both the local economy and the countyโs coffers.
โIf something happened and oil went to $50 a barrel and everything moved out of here tomorrow, I donโt think it would hurt anybodyโs feelings in Glasscock County,โ said the county judge, Kim Halfmann.
One fact is crucial in understanding the anger toward the drilling that is pervasive among Glasscock Countyโs 1,251 residents: Most cotton farmers here do not own the mineral rights for the land that they farm. Under Texas law, the rights of mineral owners trump the rights of surface owners, meaning most Glasscock County farmers are powerless to stop energy developers from drilling wells, even as it destroys valuable crop land.
ย โI guess thatโs what really irritates some of my producers: Theyโve farmed this land for so many years, and basically someone shows up and says what theyโre going to do with it,โ said Jeff Turner, chief executive of the Glasscock County Co-Op Gin, a local farming cooperative.
Most landowners sold their mineral rights decades ago to raise money during lean years of farming, Turner said. At the time, few foresaw the frenzy of drilling activity that was to come.
โA lot of them sold those mineral rights to survive and to eat and to keep their land,โ Turner said.
Between one-third and two-thirds of Texas farmers do not own the mineral rights under the land they farm, according to Darren Hudson, an agricultural economist at Texas Tech University.
โI know some farmers who have gotten filthy rich off the boom, but most of them donโt,โ Hudson said. โIf they donโt own the mineral rights, itโs more of an inconvenience.โ
Debbra Mamula, executive vice president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, said the energy development in Glasscock County has produced tangible benefits, most noticeably, oil and gas operators pay the bulk of property taxes.
โIn Glasscock County, oil and natural gas operators paid $6.1 million in property taxes in tax year 2013, which amounts to 84 percent of the countyโs total property tax base,โ Mamula said.
Halfmann agreed that the drilling boom has been great for her countyโs revenue, but said most of that additional money is being used to repair roads damaged by oil field truck activity. Overall, the gains from drilling are not viewed as worth the drawbacks in a county long dominated by cotton farming.
โWe donโt have a lot of businesses here, so we donโt have interest in a lot of economic development like a lot of these smaller West Texas towns are looking for,โ Halfmann said. โWeโre very satisfied with it the way it was.โ
For every new oil or gas well, drilling firms take over a pad site of three to five acres and construct pathways โ often through cropland โ to a nearby road. All of that land will probably never be suitable for fertile farming again, said Norman Garza, associate legislative director with the Texas Farm Bureau.
Drilling companies often pay landowners to cover โdamagesโ for a well. Several cotton farmers told the Tribune that a typical payment for a well site was about $10,000, an amount they were told was nonnegotiable, as state law did not require any payment to the surface owner.
โYouโre kind of at the mercy of what they want to pay,โ said Dennis Fuchs, a cotton farmer whose 640-acre piece of farmland has 16 wells.
He echoed several other farmers in describing the payments as insufficient to cover the loss of farmland and the hassle of maneuvering plows and other farming equipment around the well sites.
โIf you have the minerals on it, then yeah, the damages are fine,โ said Ronnie Hirt, one of the few Glasscock County cotton farmers who co-owns mineral rights on most of his farmland. โIf the only income you get is the damages, theyโre not nearly enough.โ
Bill Mintz, a spokesman for Apache, one of Glasscock Countyโs most active drillers, said the company tries to treat farmers fairly, regardless of whether they own the mineral rights.
โSurface damage payments are the result of a commercial negotiation between the company and surface owner,โ Mintz said. โWe believe our offers are fair, in the context that we also need to be consistent across the area.โ
The drilling activity has impacted the work and lifestyles of Glasscock County cotton farmers in several other ways.
The proliferation of trash from oil field workers is a particular source of frustration. Farmers spoke of empty plastic bottles, food wrappers and coat hangers piling up on well sites and scattering across their farmland, sometimes ending up mixed into cotton bales sold to mills.
โThis community used to be pristine,โ Fuchs said. โI canโt tell you how much trash I have picked up โ like 30-gallon garbage cans of it.โ
The drilling activity has also extended the time it takes to accomplish basic farming tasks.ย Farmers spoke of routinely spending double the time they used to for transporting farming equipment on county roads due to because of oil field traffic. Even a routine task likeย scheduling a visit from a crop-dusting plane became trickier. Because the chemicals used can be hazardous, farmers spoke of having to arrange with multiple energy firms to ensure no oil field workers are on the premises at the time.
โI deal with five oil companies on a daily basis,โ Seidenberger said.
The influx of thousands of oil workers, many of whom stay in temporary housing facilities, has also been a sore point, particularly as it has contributed to a spike in traffic crashes.
โMy accident rate has gone up fivefold since I took office five years ago,โ Halfmann said.
Many farmers are selling groundwater to drillers. While the additional revenue eases some of the complaints about the drilling, some farmers fear they are contributing to the communityโs permanent undoing. โIf my water well goes dry, my house is worth nothing, and thatโs a really big concern,โ Hirt said.
Despite that concern, Hirt is still selling his water to drillers because he knows landowners living near him are doing the same from an aquifer they share.
โItโs still going to be depleted,โ Hirt said. โIt makes you feel like, well, you better get your part of it, or someone else will.โ
A common theme among conversations with Glasscock County residents about the drilling boom was a feeling of powerlessness in a state where the widespread perception is that the oil and gas industry is unbeatable. Last year, the energy industry outspent farming interests by about 10-1 on lobbyists to the Texas Legislature, according to a report by Texans for Public Justice, a liberal watchdog group.
It is a bitter pill for Halfmann, who regularly hears of the concerns from farmers.
โCounty governments, we donโt have jurisdiction over any of the things that are going on,โ she said. โIt makes me feel like Iโm not serving my constituency the way that I wish that I could, but my hands are tied.โ
Disclosure: The Texas Farm Bureau is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.ย Apache has been a corporate sponsor of the Tribune.ย A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewedย here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/31/county-resents-oil-drilling-despite-money-it-bring/.