Oil exploration in Madison County

A Texas based oil company is using controlled blasts to explore the earth underneath Madison county to look for oil drilling opportunities. When you ask a lot of Madison residents about drilling off the coast of Mississippi, they say drill, drill, drill and drill now. I wonder how they feel about beautiful Madison being home to constant blasts of dynamite? I also wonder how they feel about having oil production in their backyard, literally and figuratively. What say ye, Madison?

Clarion Ledger story:

In recent weeks, residents have heard loud blasts and seen crews on the ground, and officials with Denbury Resources say there could be a big payoff in store.

Denbury, which has the largest oil and gas presence in Mississippi, has set up seismic survey equipment from Flora to the Ross Barnett Reservoir that uses controlled blasts to create an underground map of the area, looking for carbon dioxide.

The company buys dead oil fields and pumps carbon dioxide into them to produce more oil.
Under normal conditions, about 20 to 40 percent of a reservoir's original oil can be extracted. Using the CO2 technique can push that to 30 to 60 percent.

....

Ashbrooke resident Kim Barlow said the testing should have been publicized more because those who did not know about it could have been scared.

"It was like we were being bombed," she said. "You hear the blasts, and you see this helicopter flying over."

Barlow, who has two children, said she could hear the blasts for about four days.

She worried that, especially with children in the neighborhood, the listening devices could have been dangerous.