Whose property is it?
Published April 16, 2015
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, April 16, 2015.
On the final day of its regular legislative session last month, the House of Delegates in gas-rich West Virginia defeated a controversial bill on a 49-49 vote.
It would have allowed “forced pooling,” a maneuver that lets operators drill under the property of unwilling landowners.
“Forced pooling means without consent. They don’t want to do it,” Democratic Delegate Isaac Sponagle said in explaining his opposition.
In North Carolina, no one is drilling for natural gas yet. But a 1945 law allows forced pooling. It’s seldom been used, but that may change unless it’s revised.
State Rep. Bryan Holloway, a Republican teacher and farmer from Stokes County, has filed a bill to repeal that provision. His district, which runs into Rockingham County, includes the Dan River Basin, one of the state’s shale formations where natural gas may be trapped deep underground. Many residents are eager to lease their land to gas companies, but some want to be left alone. Holloway believes they should have that right. “To me, this is just a pure property rights issue,” he told the News & Record’s Amanda Lehmert.
It is, and conservative legislators who oppose the exercise of eminent domain for private development or forced annexation ought to agree. Legislators who enacted a “stand your ground” law letting homeowners use deadly force to protect their property ought to at least grant legal protection to landowners who want to keep drilling companies away from their homes, fields and groundwater.
Yet, North Carolina’s leaders are so eager to roll out the red carpet for the natural gas industry that they might roll it over private property rights. They should reconsider.
Forced pooling began with good intentions. It was meant to limit the number of wells and make sure that landowners weren’t denied payment for oil and gas lying below their property. Unfortunately, the practice can be turned against them.
Natural gas may lie below many properties. Owners can pool their interests to command a good price and limit how many wells are drilled. But, if a few owners won’t go along, they could block some of their neighbors from the pool or force the drilling of additional wells, raising costs. Laws in many states can compel them to join, awarding them a fair share of the proceeds and in some cases assigning them a portion of the costs.
Two years ago, a study group of the N.C. Energy and Mining Commission recommended allowing forced pooling only if at least 90 percent of landowners signed leases. Then the other 10 percent or fewer could be forced to participate. That recommendation has not been enacted.
Holloway’s bill goes further, but he admits it’s “going to have a tough time.” Maybe it can encourage the adoption of a 90 percent rule as a compromise.
Ideally, the law would respect the rights of people like David Collins, a Rockingham County resident who owns 22 acres of agricultural land. “If I say no fracking, that should be the end of the discussion,” he told Lehmert.
In West Virginia, it would be. But not here.
April 16, 2015 at 9:11 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Which political party was in the majority in the NC Legislature from 1945 until 2011?
April 16, 2015 at 2:06 pm
Richard L Bunce says:
Government forcing anyone to allow someone else to do something to their property is not acceptable.
Since oil and gas are somewhat fluid underground this can be a problematic situation... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_law_in_the_United_States
"Unless mineral rights are severed, whoever owns the fee of the soil owns everything below the surface, limited by the extent of the surface rights (Del Monte Mining & Milling Co. v. Last Chance Mining & Milling Co.). Because oil and gas are fluids, they may flow in the subsurface across property boundaries. In this way, an operator may permissibly extract oil and gas from beneath the land of another, if the extraction is lawfully conducted on his own property (Kelly v. Ohio Oil Co.). An operator may not, however, angle a well to penetrate beneath property not owned by or leased to him.
The two conflicting legal doctrines covering oil and gas extraction are the rule of capture, and the correlative rights doctrine. Which of the doctrines applies in a particular case depends on state law, which varies considerably from state to state, or in the case of the federal offshore zone, on US federal law.
