March 6, 2008

Surface owners’ bill not likely this year

By DAVID HEDGES
Publisher

A bill to give surface owners more say about the location of natural gas wells on their property before the wells are drilled is not likely to pass this year.

Instead, the issue is will be studied prior to next year’s legislative session, according to two lawmakers who represent Roane County.

Sen. Frank Deem (R-Wood) said the proposal known as the surface owners’ bill of rights will not come up for a vote this year.

Instead, Deem, himself a longtime oil and gas developer, said a senate concurrent resolution would be adopted that requests the Joint Committee on Government and Finance study the administration and enforcement of oil and gas well laws relating to the rights of surface owners.

That would allow the issues to be examined during monthly interim meetings prior to the start of the legislative session in February 2009.

The resolution originated in the Senate Committee on Energy, Industry and Mining, of which Deem is a member.

“I feel certain this resolution will pass and that the subject will be addressed during the interim,” Deem said.

Delegate Bob Ashley (R-Roane) agreed that the study would come before a bill would be passed.

He said the proposed bill had been referred to three different committees in each the House and the Senate, which would make it almost impossible to pass this year.

“To go through the committee process three times is tough,” he said. “The leadership of both houses have decided it will be studied over the summer.”

Some property owners who own the surface rights, but not the mineral rights to their land, have complained that drillers sometimes choose sites for gas wells, pipelines and access roads without consulting them. They also say they are not fairly compensated for damages to their property.

Current state law gives landowners no input about the location of the well sites or roads, only about the construction methods.

Oil and gas operators say they pay taxes on the mineral rights just as surface owners do, and some surface owners simply don’t want wells drilled on their property or try to use delay tactics to get additional money beyond damage payments.

“I hear it from both sides,” Ashley said.

“It seems we do need to find some common ground on siting, because some of the stories you hear from citizens are tough,” Ashley said.

“I heard from some people in Jackson County who said an out of state company was going to put a pipeline across their property, and they didn’t even have a right of way,” he said. “Another family said they were building their dream home and a company was putting a well right across the road. They would have liked it to be moved to a little different location.”

Ashley said he has also heard from those in the oil and gas business.

“I have not heard any of them say to ‘kill the bill,’” he said. “But we do need to be able to extract the oil and gas and get it to market, so they have their concerns.”

At the same time Ashley and Deem were contacted by e-mail, the other three legislators whose districts include Roane County, Senators Donna Boley (R-Pleasants), Karen Facemyer (R-Jackson) and Mike Hall (R-Putnam), were contacted for this story. They did not respond by the newspaper’s publication deadline.