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WVSORO and the 2017 Legislature
WVSORO will again be pushing for legislation to have the property rights of surface owners recognized, to increase their chances of owning some of the minerals under them, and to deal with orphaned wells and other environmental problems, etc. We will also be active opposing legislation the industry introduces (out of its sense of entitlement) which will harm the interests of surface owners (including some fortunate few of whom are also small mineral interest owners).
Some think that the recent election results will hurt our chances on those fronts. We disagree. WVSORO has always tried to be non-partisan. Rural Republican legislators have generally been supporters of our positions. Our issues are in essence property rights issues favored by many of those just elected.
Most of our successes in the past are as a result of the actions of the members of WVSORO back home being heard by their legislators. Feel free to start contacting your legislators now. And we will send alerts on legislation we are proposing once we have actual bill numbers.
Here is how to contact your legislators.
- Pass a Bill to Implement the Recommendations of the WVU Studies Required by the 2011 Horizontal Well Act
- Land Re-union. Pass a Bill to Let Surface Owners Step into the Shoes of the High Bidder If an Interest In Their Minerals Is Sold at a Tax Sale
- Pass a Bill to Use Funds Due to Unlocatable Mineral Owners in Partition Suits To Plug Orphaned Wells Instead of the Money Going to the State Treasurer’s Office
- Pass a Bill to Require Forfeited Bond Money To Fix the Problem on The Land That Caused The Forfeiture
- Pass a Bill to Require Compensation Paid to Landowners in Eminent Domain Proceeding for Pipelines to Be Based on Its Value/Worth to the Pipeline Company
I. Pass a Bill to Implement the Recommendations of the WVU Studies Required by the 2011 Horizontal Well Act
When the Horizontal Well Act was passed in a three day special session in December 2011, surface owners did not get many protections. Instead the Act required studies on the impacts on surface owners to be done, and safeguards were supposed to be enacted if the studies showed the need. The studies showed, according to the DEP, that safeguards were needed implemented “to reduce potential exposures” and” to provide for a more consistent and protective safeguard for residents in affected areas.” The safeguards were never implemented.
- Bullet points regarding implementation of the WVU studies
- WV-SORO’s position paper which references this appendix from the actual studies
- Summary of DEP’s non-response to the studies with links to the studies (below “About the Horizontal Well Control Act”)
- Draft proposed bill for fenceline/continuous monitoring of air, noise, dust, and particulates
- Bill introduced during the 2017 legislative session (HB 2990)
II. Land Re-union. Pass a Bill to Let Surface Owners Step into the Shoes of the High Bidder If an Interest In Their Minerals Is Sold at a Tax Sale.
Ownership of the surface and ownership of the minerals should never have been separated. Almost everyone agrees. WVSORO thinks there should be a “West Virginia Land Reunion”. We have even recorded a song about it for you to listen to.
For this 2017 session we think the Legislature should pass a bill to allow surface owners to get back any of their minerals that are sold at tax sales.
- Brief bullet points telling what the tax sale problem is and what can be done about it
- What opponents of the bill have said to try to stop the bill and what we say back
- An article from the State Journal on the situation of one unlucky citizen/surface owner who could have been helped if the bill had already passed
- A copy of last year’s bill (2016)
- Version that passed the WV Senate during the 2017 legislative session (SB 369)
- And don’t forget to listen to “The West Virginia Land Reunion Song”
III. Pass a Bill to Use Funds Due to Unlocatable Mineral Owners in Partition Suits To Plug Orphaned Wells Instead of the Money Going to the State Treasurer’s Office
There is an “Oil and Gas Reclamation Fund” to plug the thousands and thousands of oil and gas wells that have been orphaned over the last century by oil and gas drillers who go out of business without plugging them. The tsunami of horizontal drilling into the Marcellus Shale and other formations will cause lots more conventional drilling companies to go out of business without plugging their wells. From 2010 to 2014 there was only enough money in the fund to plug just 6. The Marcellus Shale tsunami has also resulted in many more suits being filed to partition mineral interest tracts. The result has been lots of money being held by special receivers for heirs who cannot be found. If the heirs do not turn up in 5 years the money goes to the Treasurer’s Office. This bill would send that money to the Oil and Gas Reclamation Fund instead.
- Fact sheet on the bill sending funds due to unlocatable owners in partition suits to plug orphaned wells
- Chart showing lack of money in fund to plug orphaned wells
- Last year’s bill (2016)
- Bill introduced during the 2017 legislative session (SB 370)
IV. Pass a Bill to Require Forfeited Bond Money To Fix the Problem on The Land That Caused The Forfeiture
If a drillers’ bond is forfeited by the State, the money should be used first to fix the problem on landowner’s land that caused the bond to be forfeited.
- Fact Sheet on what happens now/why this is necessary
- Draft proposed bill
V. Pass a Bill to Require Compensation Paid to Landowners in Eminent Domain Proceeding for Pipelines to Be Based on Its Value/Worth to the Pipeline Company
The rights of way for the various interstate pipeline projects will not be owned by the state, but by a private for-profit company. Most of the gas will be used not by local homeowners, or even by local businesses. Much of the gas will be used by for-profit private enterprise businesses or, at best, by privately owned electric utility companies with regulated, guaranteed profits. Billions and billions of dollars worth of gas will pass through the pipelines.
So if the farmers are to have unwanted pipelines placed across their land, they should not be given the low price of what the pasture was worth to the farmer as a pasture. They should be given what the value of having the pipeline across the farmer’s land is worth to the pipeline company and their gas buyers.
The Legislature should pass a bill that would change the determination of “just compensation” to be paid to landowners when eminent domain is used for a pipeline and the pipeline does not connect to a residential or commercial end user. This would allow property owners to share financially in the gains from the various interstate pipeline projects, if they are approved and built.
