Some 100 residents are headed to DC

On Capitol Hill, July 13: Join 100 West Virginians in Support of Joe Biden’s 100% Clean Energy Standard

Co-sponsors of this event include West Virginia New Jobs Coalition, West Virginia Working Families Party, and CCAN Action Fund

Start: Tuesday, July 13, 2021 • 1:00 PM
Location:14th Street between Madison Dr. and Jefferson Dr. • National Mall, Washington, DC 20016

As West Virginians, we support President Joe Biden’s “American Jobs Plan”. Are you excited about the thousands of jobs this plan would create repairing our infrastructure, improving public health, and building a clean-energy economy?

If so, please join 100 fellow West Virginians on July 13th in Washington, DC. We’ll gather outdoors near the Capitol lawn in support of President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan and its 100% clean electricity by 2035 provision.

The American Jobs Plan includes extending the 48C Manufacturing Tax Credit which supports rural manufacturing and clean energy. This proven capital access program includes a special $4 billion carve-out for companies willing to set up operations in communities where coal mines or coal power plants have closed. In addition, the plan allocates $16 billion dollars to cap abandoned oil wells that continue to leak methane into the air and contaminate waterways.

The time to act is now. On July 13th we will gather at the US Capitol to show our support for 100% clean electricity and the American Jobs Plan.

WV State Capitol

WV Surface Owners’ Rights Organization: Final Legislative Update

From an Article by Julie Archer, WV SORO, April 9, 2017

Today is the last day of the 2017 legislative session. You’ve probably heard that the industry’s re-branded forced pooling legislation (SB 576) was officially declared dead earlier in the week by the chair of the House Energy Committee. With the session coming to a close, the other bad bills we alerted you about previously, including the “right to trespass” bills (SB 245 and HB 2688), have also met their demise. This is good news.

Unfortunately, this also means that the various bills on WV-SORO’s legislative priorities list did not make it through the process in time to become law. Although we are disappointed we weren’t able to see these policies passed and implemented this session, we’re pleased to report that our “land reunion” bill (SB 369), which would begin to reverse the trend of separate ownership by giving surface owners a first chance to own any interest in the minerals under their land that are sold for non-payment of property taxes, made it further than it ever had before, having passed the Senate 33 to 1. We are especially grateful to the WV Food and Farm Coalition for their support of this initiative and helping to make the progress we made this year possible.

However, most importantly, we want to thank all of our members and supporters who have took action over the past 60 days. Your calls, emails, and letters to legislators, as well as your letters to the editor made a tremendous difference. Thank you speaking out and making your voices heard. We couldn’t have done it without you.

We also want to thank everyone who renewed their membership in response to our recent newsletter. Your support keeps us going! If you haven’t renewed your membership we hope you’ll continue your financial support of WV-SORO by sending your dues to 1500 Dixie Street, Charleston, WV 25311.

If you didn’t receive a copy of the newsletter in the mail, please email julie@wvsoro.org with your mailing address and other contact information so we can update our records. Thanks again for your continued support.

Fracking Permit Guide and Webinar

Our friends at the WV Rivers Coalition (WVRC) have created a Citizen’s Guide to Fracking Permits in West Virginia to help citizens submit meaningful comments to the WV Department of Environmental Protection on the various permits the agency issues for activities related to natural gas development. This includes well work permits, construction permits related to pipelines and other infrastructure, and permits related to waste disposal (injection wells and landfills).

WVRC and Downstream Strategies will be hosting a free webinar on the guide on Wednesday, April 12 at 1PM.

Citizen involvement helps to hold permitting agencies and companies accountable to the law. It’s also an important way to speak up for the value of our land, our waters, and the well-being of our communities. Click here to register for the webinar.

• >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >
• West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization
  1500 Dixie Street, Charleston, West Virginia 25311
  304-346-5891
  Join WV SORO

Energy & the Environment

Coal, gas drilling bills get hearings as session enters final week

From an Article by Ken Ward, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, April 3, 2017

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Bills to give West Virginia’s coal industry a break on water quality standards and the state’s natural gas drillers help in dealing with unwilling land and mineral owners had public hearings in the House of Delegates this morning as the legislative session entered its final week.

The House Committee on Energy held back-to-back hearings starting at 8 a.m. on a bill to eliminate the requirement that state stream quality measures ensure a diversity of aquatic life and a separate bill that would force unwilling co-owners of natural gas reserves to allow drilling if three-quarters of the owners favor the activity.

Environmental groups and citizens turned out with strong opposition to Senate Bill 687. The Senate-passed “coal bill” started out as a proposal to eliminate almost all state mine safety enforcement, but now does little for safety, while making a significant change in the way the state Department of Environmental Protection would measure stream health.

Among those who spoke against the legislation was Wendy Radcliff, a Charleston attorney who was fired from her former position as the DEP’s environmental advocate by agency Secretary Austin Caperton. Radcliff said that the bill won’t make streams cleaner, just eliminate part of the DEP’s process to accurately analyze the level of pollution downstream from mining operations. “Ignoring pollution is not the solution,” Radcliff said. “The problem is still there, whether we remove the measuring tool or not.”

Jason Bostic, a vice president for the West Virginia Coal Association, said the industry asked for the change to help it respond to lawsuits and court rulings about how water quality rules are established and enforced in the state. “These changes are there only to clarify a loophole to allow an unelected federal judge to substitute his judgment for the people in this body about what West Virginia’s narrative water quality standards should be,” Bostic said.

Energy Committee members also heard testimony on Senate Bill 576, the legislation that natural gas drillers say is needed to help them better take advantage of the huge natural gas supplies in the state’s Marcellus Shale region.

The first to speak in favor of the bill was Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher, whose boss, Gov. Jim Justice, has supported some form of the legislation. “These gas reserves are the way we’re going to work our way out of the morass we are in,” Thrasher said. “Make no mistake about it.”

Opponents, though, said the bill unfairly takes the mineral property of West Virginians without ensuring much-needed protection for surface landowners and modernizing — increasing — the royalty payments contained in decades-old leases to match the economics of the modern industry.

“This bill forces a pooling provision into everyone’s leases without the benefit of any negotiation,” said Jason Webb, a lobbyist for the West Virginia Land and Mineral Owners Association. “It’s difficult for us to understand why the government wants to force that on anyone.”

House Energy Chairman William Anderson, R-Wood, said he expected there to be proposed changes for both bills when the committee puts them on the agenda for consideration Tuesday or Wednesday. The legislative session ends at midnight Saturday. If the House changes either bill, the changes would have to go back to the Senate for its consideration.

– See more at:  http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-politics/20170403/coal-gas-drilling-bills-get-hearings-as-session-enters-final-week#sthash.jXo7g8rh.dpuf

Neighborly Greetings also from Engage Mountain Maryland

WVU Extension 2015 Oil and Gas Publications

Dear All,

Below are links to three oil and gas peer reviewed publications developed in 2015 by the WVU Extension Service Oil and Natural Gas Team.

I hope they will be of benefit to you or someone you know.

They are available on the WVUES Oil and Gas Website:

>>> Forced Pooling and Dispute Resolution: http://anr.ext.wvu.edu/r/download/222182

>>> Careers in the Oil and Natural Gas Industry: http://anr.ext.wvu.edu/r/download/209241

>>> A Landowner Checklist for Replanting Areas Impacted by Natural Gas Development: http://anr.ext.wvu.edu/r/download/222446

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes in 2016.

Sincerely, Georgette Plaugher

West Virginia University Extension Service

Oil and Natural Gas Education Program

Program Coordinator, Georgy.Plaugher@mail.wvu.edu

Telephone: 304-329-1391

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See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net and www.engagemmd.org

and www.Marcellus-Shale.us

Drill pads anywhere (and everywhere)?

Oil and gas industry aims to get its way

Guest Commentary by William R. Suan, Morgantown Dominion Post, March 1, 2015

The Marcellus shale once sounded like a financial opportunity that I wanted to be part of; however, it seems we now have an industry out of control using its money, lobbyists and political muscle to bully West Virginia property owners. The issue of forced pooling, fair pooling or lease integration, or whatever the industry wants to call it, is the taking of personal property rights to benefit profits of private corporations.

The industry argues that they cannot develop some mineral tracts because of lost and unaccounted for heirs. West Virginia has a statute addressing the issue, and it is a fair law. When there are missing and unknown heirs, the driller can lease that interest and put royalties in escrow for seven years. After the time is up, the property and royalties go to the surface owner.

The industry complains that the unwilling mineral owners who refuse to sign a lease are stopping them from developing mineral tracts to their full potential. Against unwilling owners who have a partial interest in a mineral tract and are unwilling to sign a lease, the industry can bring a partition action to settle the issue. Another issue is the industry saying we already have forced pooling in the Utica shale. This is a misleading statement. This law was passed before horizontal drilling and was passed for well-spacing purposes.

The gas industry has thousands of acres held by production (old leases) that they are not drilling. The industry says they can drill multiple wells on one Marcellus pad. Why are they not drilling more wells on existing pads? The gas industry has enough acres and leases to drill for many years.

The industry will use a forced pooling law to bully West Virginia property owners. Land men already use the tactic, “If you don’t sign this lease, we will just take it.” I have been threatened this way.

The oil and gas industry can come onto a person’s property, take acres of it because the minerals have been severed and owned by another party. Try to imagine owning property and being helpless when this industry shows up with its equipment and takes whatever it wants. They now want to lay pipelines by using eminent domain and can lay pipelines on property according to terms of an old lease. Now the industry is asking lawmakers to give them the right to come and take the mineral rights you own and tell you what you will be paid for them. This will be used to bring down the price of leases and eliminate negotiation. The mineral owner would have to make his or her case to not be “forced pooled” to the industry-friendly oil and gas commission.

The natural gas industry is a long way from running out of leased mineral tracts to drill. There is no need for a forced pooling law. The industry wants forced pooling to benefit its profits and investors, not West Virginia’s workers and mineral owners.

The industry has pushed this issue in past legislative sessions and it has failed. With the new “business friendly” leadership, I am sure the industry feels this is an opportunity to get its way.

If you want to protect private property rights, contact your legislator and tell them to vote “no” on the forced pooling law.

>>> William R. Suan is a mineral and farm owner near Lost Creek, in southern Harrison County, WV.

WV Gas Industry Forcing Pooling Again

Citizen Input to the Legislature is Essential on Most Bills

From an Article by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, February 20, 2015

Whether one wants to call it “forced pooling” or “unitization,” Tim Greene said allowing Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas producers to drill on unleased land will give the industry an unfair advantage in dealing with mineral owners.

Identical bills, both introduced Friday, are now up for committee debate in both the West Virginia House and Senate. The House bill – H.B. 4558 – is sponsored by Speaker Tim Miley, D-Harrison, among others. The Senate bill – S.B. 578 – is sponsored by President Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, and Senator Larry Edgell, D-Wetzel, among others.

In both 2011 and 2013, similar bills that would have allowed frackers to include unleased minerals in horizontal drilling pads failed to pass in the state Legislature. Reached late Wednesday, Edgell said the pooling bill is “not going to pass,” adding that he had asked his name to be removed from its list of sponsors.”The way this is crafted, it just is not fair to a bunch of landowners I know back home,” Edgell said. “There is a lot of opposition to this.”

Meanwhile, Greene is a former West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection oil and gas inspector who now owns Land and Mineral Management of Appalachia. He said “small” mineral owners throughout the Mountain State will suffer if legislators approve the practice he calls forced pooling.

“I just hate to see it being used as a hammer against the small mineral owner. They deserve the right to negotiate a fair lease,” Greene said. “There are landmen now going around the state telling mineral owners, ‘You either sign this or we are going to force pool you.’ And it is not even the law yet.”

Under the legislation, if surrounding property owners have signed leases with a particular drilling company but one property owner has not, that property owner could be forced to allow their land to be used by gas drillers for the development of the neighbors’ gas. The pooling provision would require gas companies to pay pooled property owners royalties comparable to those paid to neighbors.

In the case of a mineral owner who refuses to sign, he said the bill would require drillers to lease a “supermajority” of the adjoining acreage before they can act on pooling.

Corky Demarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said any royalties paid to an absent property owner would be placed into an escrow account. “Pennsylvania and Ohio have statutes allowing this,” he said. “If we are going to maximize our opportunity with the shale industry, we need some certainty. We can’t allow one mineral owner who wants to hold out to shut down a drilling operation.”

The Legislature ultimately decided against forced pooling in 2011 after many landowners voiced concerns about losing their ability to negotiate better lease deals from the gas companies. The industry tried to pass a similar bill last year without much success.

“There is a lot of acreage in this state that is just not going to be developed unless we get this,” Demarco said. As with Demarco, Greene is not sure of the bill’s destiny, but said companies should not be able to “bully” mineral owners.

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West Virginia Environmental Council Action Alert – February 21, 2015

There are three–yes, three–items about which you might contact Senate Judiciary members.

1. Any day, we’re expecting that committee to take up S.B. 423, “Amending the Aboveground Storage Tank Act.” This bill would gut the water protections gained in last year’s S.B. 373. Tell committee members to reject this bill!

2. We’re also expecting the committee to take up S.B. 482 any day. This bill would seriously weaken air pollution permitting for smaller sources, and establish unrealistic deadlines for the WV-DEP to review permit applications. And it says that if the DEP does not act, the permit is deemed granted as applied for. Tell committee members to reject this bill also!

3. Sooner or later, this committee will take up S.B. 167, the DEP rule that would restore “Category A” (drinking water) status to the portion of the Kanawha River that flows past Charleston. Tell committee members to pass this rule without amendment!

Note:  The House Judiciary Committee meeting at 9 am this Monday will take up “Coal Jobs and Safety Act” (H.B. 2566/S.B. 357); this bill would relieve coal companies from meeting water quality standards in their pollution permits and also weaken aluminum criteria for streams. Mine workers oppose it too, because it weakens mine safety.

This is the mid-point of the 2015 Session of the Legislature, the last (60^th) day is March 14^th.

Legislation to protect the state’s land and groundwater could be derailed amid a fight between natural gas companies and mineral rights owners. Environmentalists, regulators and many lawmakers want to beef up environmental regulations ahead of the boom. They are responding to complaints  from residents who say gas companies are riding roughshod over landowners, polluting water and damaging roads, according to the Charleston Daily Mail.

The natural gas development companies want a provision that would allow them to remove gas from reluctant or absentee mineral rights owners’ property without the owners’ permission. This tactic, known as “forced pooling,” lets companies extract gas from beneath a large tract of land even if some mineral owners are holding out on signing a lease with the gas companies or if the companies can’t find every mineral owners.

Some mineral rights owners compare forced pooling to eminent domain takeovers — but worse. They say that instead of the government taking property for use by the government, forced pooling is the government taking property for use by companies. Right now, legislative drafts put in a “trigger” — at 75 percent, meaning a project could go ahead without the consent of owners who control a quarter of the mineral rights at a proposed site.

Even if a mineral rights owner’s land is force pooled, the owner is entitled to royalties. But owners probably wouldn’t receive as much if companies could tell them their gas would be taken anyway once their neighbors signed up. Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin supports the concept of forced pooling but wants it handled fairly, according to the article.

There are many issues addressed in the two major Marcellus bills under consideration by the WV Legislature. This past Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, there was plenty of discussion on “forced pooling.” The WV Mineral Owners’ Association said pooling is a terrible idea.  The WV Surface Owners Association supported forced pooling if it’s done right. The WV Environmental Council discussed other important issues. And, the ACT Foundation promoted jobs for local citizens.  Seems there are plenty of other issues so as to justify putting the complex pooling considerations into a separate legislative bill.