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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsState forces fracking on some owners
A little-used state law that can force unwilling landowners to allow fracking on their property is growing more popular among drilling companies.
Since August, drilling companies have filed 11 so-called unitization requests with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Each request sought access to Utica shale oil and gas buried beneath the unwilling property owners land.
The new requests, three of which have been approved, involve 38 landowners, businesses and public agencies that did not sign mineral-rights leases with drilling companies.
The law allows companies to add unwilling properties to large drilling units to maximize access to oil and gas as long as at least 65 percent of the acres in a unit have been leased.In July 2012, the state had approved one such request.
The properties in these newest requests cover more than 674 acres in Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson and Trumbull counties. Critics of shale drilling and fracking say unitization violates basic property rights.
This is yet another example of the deep, dark, black underside of this industry that they dont want to talk about, said Jack Shaner, a lobbyist with the Ohio Environmental Council.
State oil and gas officials say the law guarantees fair compensation, and that the properties of unwilling landowners wont be damaged by drilling rigs, pipelines, trucks or other equipment.Natural Resources officials said drilling companies cannot drill, lay pipelines or otherwise damage the surface of an unwilling landowners property. Unitization does allow the company to drill horizontally through the shale beneath that landowners property.
More:http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/05/25/state-forces-fracking-on-some-owners.html
annabanana
(52,791 posts)by drilling rigs, pipelines, trucks or other equipment" . .??
And exactly what is the compensation when these things inevitably come to pass?
Disgusting big-footing by our corporate masters.....
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)and your land and water rights mean nothing to our inalienable right to have it all.
FreeJoe
(1,039 posts)Let's take an example where you and I have adjoining property and you lease your mineral rights and I don't. If you drill for oil on your property, there is no way for you to avoid taking oil from my property. It would be like us co-owning a lake and you taking out "your water" and leaving mine.
Are they saying that someone not leasing their mineral rights is being forced to allow drilling activity on their property?
byeya
(2,842 posts)you lose your freedoms. Never really had them at all did you?
"A man's home is his castle" is another oldie but goodie