WV Surface Owners Join Forces with Enviros to Challenge CCS Primacy
A key issue has come about with the rapid increase in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects around the country, including here in the Marcellus/Utica region. Where does one store (sequester) all that carbon dioxide (CO2)? The answer is underground in a Class VI injection well. Class VI wells are a relatively new classification for injection wells, created by the federal EPA in 2010. Earlier this year, the federal EPA bestowed “primacy” on West Virginia, granting the WV Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) the authority to approve new Class VI injection wells, bypassing the federal EPA (see EPA Bestows West Virginia with CO2 (Class VI) Injection Well Primacy). WV is only one of four states with Class VI primacy. The West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization (WVSORO) has joined forces with the Sierra Club, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Inc., and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (three anti-fossil fuel organizations) to petition a federal appeals court to overturn WV’s Class VI primacy designation. Read More “WV Surface Owners Join Forces with Enviros to Challenge CCS Primacy”
In December 2022, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approved permission for New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) to build a pipeline regulator station in Holmdel, New Jersey. What does a regulator station do? It reduces pressure on the existing underground natural gas pipelines in the area, which run underneath Holmdel Township and throughout Monmouth County. Ultimately, a regulator station will ensure the reliability of the pipelines and the gas that flows in the area. The new station will replace a currently operating temporary regulator station. Yet the “leaders” of Holmdel voted in 2023 to appeal the BPU decision to court, allocating up to $20,000 of taxpayer money for legal fees, which turned out to be a fruitless attempt at overturning the BPU decision (see 
Local municipalities with radical political leaders, along with some “blue” states run by radical Democrats, have attempted to strip away the right of their citizens to freely choose which energy source they want to use. It’s about as anti-American as it gets, against the very founding of this country. Yet it happens. Berkeley, California’s “first-in-the-nation” natural gas ban was later overturned by a federal appeals court. Yet recently, two other appeals court cases have ruled in favor of gas-banning municipalities and states. Let’s consider the “shifting landscape” of local and state gas bans… 
This is news of a lawsuit with implications for drillers, rights owners, and surface land owners that we were not previously aware of. EOG Resources, an oil and gas drilling giant with nearly half a million leased acres in Ohio, holds drilling rights on land owned by Lucky Land Management in Ohio—we could not determine the exact location or county. The two sides couldn’t agree on whether EOG’s rights to drill included the right to drill from Lucky Land’s surface out to adjacent properties as well. So EOG sued. EOG then asked a district court to grant a preliminary injunction, allowing the company to access the land to cut down trees and begin constructing wells. The district court did so, finding that EOG would probably succeed on the merits of the case. 
Yesterday, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a ruling dismissing a case that leaves in place a ruling from the Seventh District Court of Appeals. The case, Darrell Crozier et al. v. Pipe Creek Conservancy LLC et al., involves a decision on who owns the oil and gas rights underlying a property in rural Belmont County. The case revolves around the Ohio Marketable Title Act (MTA), something we’ve written about multiple times (
Here’s a lawsuit that was not previously on our radar. A West Virginia couple, Bart Mickey and Jami Mickey, sued EQT alleging the company concealed a 2020 Surface Access and Use Agreement allowing EQT to remove a pond, diminishing the value of a property the Mickey’s purchased in Marshall County for $350,000. The Mickeys said in their lawsuit that EQT signed a deal with the previous owners of the property, allowing EQT to remove a pond for $10,000 (an action required under a 2015 Consent Decree with the EPA and WVDEP). Then, EQT (according to the Mickeys) delayed recording the easement with the county. When buying the property, the Mickeys said the easement/deal did not appear in a title search. 
We have an important update to share. On Feb. 19, MDN published a post about a Catalyst Energy wastewater injection well in Keating Township, McKean County, PA (see 
In January 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in THE most consequential lawsuit for Marcellus Shale drilling we’ve seen, a case called Briggs v Southwestern Energy (see 
A Washington County, PA, man and his anti-fossil fuel lawyer won a victory with the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB), a special court in PA set up to hear appeals of Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) decisions. The man, Bryan Latkanich, alleges Chevron used PFAS “forever chemicals” in fracking fluids in 2011-2012 when Chevron drilled two wells some 500 feet from his home. Latkanich claims his water well was damaged, as well as his health and the health of family members who drank the “contaminated” water. EQT now owns the wells. 
On March 24, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a group of kids pushing for federal action on climate change since filing their lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, in 2015. Represented by Our Children’s Trust, the 21 youths argued that the government’s energy policies violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and security by exacerbating climate change. The case faced repeated setbacks in federal courts, with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, leading to a lower court’s dismissal of the case. The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up the appeal centered on this procedural issue of standing, effectively ending the long-running litigation. The nonprofit behind the suit had asked the Court to delay its decision pending another case on standing, but the justices proceeded, closing a significant chapter in youth-led climate activism. 
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia (Roanoke Division) ruled in two of five cases before it in which Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which is now majority-owned by EQT Corporation, sued radical protesters who blocked the construction of the pipeline in Roanoke County, Virginia. The court dismissed one count in the two cases (count #4) against the protesters, which the media focused on. The media doesn’t want to talk about the fact that there are five other counts, far more serious than the dismissed count, that the court is allowing to advance. These protesters are in a world of legal hurt over their illegal blocking of MVP construction.