Let me start off by saying that I don't know the first thing about drilling, and selling water. Not a lot of that goes on in Indiana. But I am very curious as to how such an arrangement would work.
Are you under any obligation to sell them your water, or is it strictly voluntary on the part of the landowner? Do you have a reason for wanting to stay on their good side? Do you stand to gain anything other than the price paid to you for your water?
My reason for asking is this: according to my math, if you were to sell water at 10 cents a barrel, and made $2000.00, then they will have removed 1,100,000 gallons from your pond. On a 1.5 acre BOW, that will drop the depth by over 2 feet, exposing a lot of shoreline.
If I were under no obligation to sell them the water, there is no way I would let it go that cheap, if I would even sell it at all. Which, under the drought circumstances you spoke of, would not be very likely.
Also, besides doing the math and computing the area of exposed shoreline to get a rough idea, how do you know how much water they take? Do you take their word on it, or is it metered somehow? Seems like an arrangement that would benefit the company far more than the pond owner.
On a different note, with two limited reproducing species such as CC and HBG as the primary forage for your LMB, I would think the bass might be a little on the thin side. If you don't mind me asking, what are your management goals, and how is it working out?
