Time’s Up – Rover Pipe Uses Eminent Domain on Holdout OH Landowners
The clock just ran out for Ohio landowners who either thought Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline would not get authorized, or hoped to hold out and get higher rates of payment to agree to allow the pipeline to cross their land. As pipeline companies often say, the use of eminent domain to gain access to property is a “last resort.” The time of last resort has come. As soon as Rover received its final authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday (see ET Rover Pipeline Gets Final Approval by FERC), it filed eminent domain lawsuits against landowners who have refused for over a year to negotiate. Now those landowners must allow Rover access–their bargaining position is gone. Rover intends to fell trees by March 31 to comply with batty laws to protect federally-protected bats. The chainsaws are revved and ready to go. The courts will decide how much compensation holdout landowners will receive–far less than if they had struck a deal before now…
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In January 2016, Invenergy announced their intention to build a natgas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County (see 
In December the Bureau of Land Management proceeded with an online auction for BLM-controlled land in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (see 
In December MDN reported on the huge West Virginia Supreme Court decision against driller EQT that disallows EQT from deducting post-production expenses from royalty checks, even with signed contracts in place (see 
In May 2015 Obama’s rogue Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) released a finalized rule clarifying what “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) means vis a vis what can be regulated under the federal Clean Water Act (see 
For years MDN has reported on a lingering/ongoing story of a community in western Pennsylvania (in Butler County) who say that nearby drilling by Rex Energy led to contamination of their well water supplies (see 
You would think if consumers want natural gas, and private companies are willing to build the pipelines to get the gas to their homes and businesses, such a thing would be possible here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. However, a trade organization in Connecticut tried to block such activity–in court. What makes it doubly distressing is that the trade organization opposing new natgas pipelines represents heating oil distributors (a sister fossil fuel), afraid that they may lose market share to natural gas. So trade group filed a lawsuit to prevent a state initiative that would expand the state’s natural gas pipeline network. Shame on them. Fortunately the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled–and the heating oil distributors lost…
MDN has reported on the Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA) for years. In a nutshell, there are two DMAs in Ohio–one passed in 1989 that went into effect in 1992, and another in 2006 which added certain additional procedural requirements to the 1989 version. The DMA in its various versions provides for mineral rights that had previously been separated from surface rights to transfer back to the surface owner under certain conditions. The problem, for drillers and for landowners in Ohio, is in knowing which set of DMA rules to use (1989 or 2006) in determining who owns the mineral rights. A number of DMA cases went before the Ohio Supreme Court. In September the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in three cases, saying all of the other cases come under those three (see 
Tired of having their application to expand a pipeline compressor station blocked, Rice Energy has sued West Pike Run Township in Washington County, PA. In the lawsuit, Rice says that the town had 90 days (under law) to render a decision on the request and did not do so. Eventually the town told Rice “no” to expanding an existing compressor station. The lawsuit asks the court to force the town to approve the application forthwith…
This news is a bit dated, from last December, but important nonetheless. Under threat of a $300 million lawsuit, Penn Township (Westmoreland County, PA) voted to allow Apex Energy to build two Marcellus well pads, and arranged for more hearings on four more well pads. In April 2016 Penn Township blocked permits for Apex well pads (see 
A West Virginia law professor and one of his students (who went on to become a trial attorney with the U.S. Dept. of Justice), have just published a research paper on the topic of surface and mineral rights in the Mountain State. The paper, titled “Horizontal Drilling Vertical Problems: Property Law Challenges from the Marcellus Shale Boom” (full copy below) discusses property law challenges that can impede business development and negatively impact landowners and mineral owners in shale regions, with a focus on the West Virginia Marcellus. The paper explains the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing process. A widespread problem in WV is that (because of coal) in many cases the owners of the mineral rights under the ground are not the same people who own the property on the surface. The paper makes the point that while courts can handle one-off cases, the WV legislature should develop better “large-scale policies” to deal with an ongoing, contentious situation…
January 20th, when Donald Trump is inaugurated and decomposing swamps like the EPA get drained, can’t happen soon enough. However, before that date, the Obamadroids are doing everything they can to get their last digs in. One of them is the rogue, out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency, which will soon be swept clean by Scott Pruitt (delicious justice if ever there were some). We’ve written about the sleazy practice of “sue and settle” in the past–a practice whereby government agencies like the EPA get their friends in the radical environmental movement to sue them, then they quickly settle the case and say “See, we HAVE to do this because the court is making us do it.” Scott Pruitt knows all about that practice and it will stop on Jan. 20. But until then, the EPA continues to engage in it. The latest case they’ve just settled was brought by the odious National Resources Defense Council, Earthworks and a mishmash of other radical groups in May 2016 regarding an attempt to ban injection wells and stop landfills from accepting drill cuttings (see