They Came to the Country For Peace, Then a Noisy Engine Moved Next Door

A group of property owners who live in a subdivision at the end of Leslie Rd. near Fayetteville want their peace and quiet back. Equipment at a gas well site near their property runs all hours of the day.

Cliff Heintschel, one of the neighbors who lives closest to the well, invited the Record to his property last Monday. He pulled out a decibel meter and measured the sound from his back porch, about 100 yards away from the huge engine idling at the well site. The meter read 65 decibels.

“This is what we have to live with,” Heintschel said.

Occasionally the engine fires up and roars, sometimes in the middle of the night. Heintschel said he can no longer sleep in his bedroom due to the noise. Instead, he sleeps in his living room on the other side of the house.

Magnolia Oil and Gas operates the well site and leases the property from a neighbor who lives elsewhere. The company drilled two wells at the site in January 2019. They installed gas compression equipment at the site last spring.

“We have been in communication with the landowners in the area to understand their concerns and have been working to address them,” said Magnolia spokesman Arthur Pike. “In early March, we installed sound walls around the compressor along with sounddeadening foam and thermal coating to protect the foam from the elements,” Pike said. “We were weather delayed in completing that process, but we were on location again this week to continue the work and did complete the installation.”

County governments have little authority to regulate noise in unincorporated areas. The residents in the subdivision do not own any mineral rights. They had no avenue to negotiate with the oil company when the well was drilled. Now they are hoping Magnolia fixes the problem.

Steven Cain, another neighbor, said the noise was quite loud during drilling operations in 2019.

“There wasn’t much they could do during the drilling and fracking, but we knew that was temporary,” Cain said. “So after they finished their drilling and fracking operations, we had a big sigh of relief. It was over with. Then in March or April of last year, they brought this equipment out. We started calling and complaining about this noise. We finally got ahold of the land manager in Houston, and they said they would get with the compressor company and try to engineer something. They put up these walls, and it hasn’t reduced the noise.”

The company built four walls around the compressor equipment, but the top remains open. A muffler sticks out above the walls. The structure has a large opening in one of the walls that focuses noise toward the home of Gerard and Lisa Howard. The Howards built their home in 2019, before the compressor was installed.

“If we had to sell our home with the way things are right now, I think I would have to take a $100,000 loss,” said Gerard Howard, who works in the real estate business. “Who wants to live next to this noise?”

“The Fayette County Appraisal Review Board lowered my taxes because they realized this devalues my property,” Cain said.

John Casper, another neighbor who has worked in the petrochemical industry, said he believes Magnolia could do more to mitigate the noise.

“The height of their walls – I think they did the minimum here,” said Casper. “It’s sad because they could engineer this out real quick, but they expect the little person to suffer. It’s all about the dollar. They’re going to get by as cheaply as they can. There are things they can do. But they’ve got to get serious with the engineering and look at the technical options they have here.”

“I’m not against it,” Casper said. “But there are certainly things they can do to respect the people who live around it.”

Pike said Magnolia’s work is not yet complete. But when it is, Pike said he believes their efforts will improve the sound levels.

“The walls and the sounddeadening foam we applied are standard industry practice,” Pike said. “It has reduced the noise in the area and hopefully will address the issue. Once we completed the work at the site, we tested sound levels again near several of the neighboring residences to ensure those levels were reduced. Throughout this process, members of our local team have been communicating with landowners in the area.

“We believe the actions we’ve taken at the site will address the sound levels, going forward,” Pike added. “We remain committed to listening to our neighbors in the area and understanding their concerns.”

If the improvements don’t reduce the sound, some of the neighbors say they may pursue legal action.