Sunday, October 13, 2013 6:27:44 PM
Western states dig for middle ground on 'split estate'
By Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY Posted 3/21/2006 10:59 PM
SILT, Colo. — The construction crew showed up at Orlyn and Carol Bell's 110-acre ranch in western Colorado and began clearing a road to build a drilling pad for four natural gas wells on their hay pasture.
Carol and Orlyn Bell inspect an air monitor on their ranch in Silt, Colo., where EnCana is drilling.
By Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY
For the Bells, the bulldozers arriving capped nine months of frustrating negotiations with energy giant EnCana over how the company would drill on their land. When the construction was imminent in September 2004, the couple capitulated to the company's terms: a payment of $2,000 for each of the roughly 8 acres used for drilling, roads and pipelines, rather than $4,500 an acre they had sought.
The Bells' experience reflects a sometimes painful reality in much of the West, where people who own millions of acres don't own the minerals below ground. For landowners without mineral rights, there is nothing they can do to prevent drilling on their property, and often little they can do if the energy company declines to be helpful.
That land-ownership pattern, much of it a holdover from 19th-century homesteading laws that gave settlers free land but left the mineral rights with the government, is known as a "split estate."
Today, the federal Bureau of Land Management controls mineral rights on about 58 million acres of private land and is selling the rights at a rapid pace to energy companies. Mineral rights on millions more acres are controlled by private parties other than landowners.
Carol Bell says the split-estate system reduces her property value. "When we negotiated with EnCana, we wanted fair compensation for land that was worth a lot of money," she says. "We negotiated and negotiated and negotiated, and they wouldn't budge."
EnCana spokesman Doug Hock says the company reached agreements with 97% of landowners last year but generally doesn't comment on specific negotiations. "We work hard to be good neighbors," Hock says. "I think we tried very hard to work with" the Bells.
As energy development surges across the region, the split-estate issue has become a flash point between the energy industry and landowners. It's happening not just in isolated places but also in growing rural areas around Silt and even in some urban areas such as Greeley, Colo.
In response, legislatures in a half-dozen Western states are struggling with how to re-balance a system that gives owners of mineral rights virtually unchecked power to drill on land owned by others:
• The Wyoming Legislature enacted a law last year that requires energy companies to give landowners at least 30 days' notice of drilling operations. The companies are to negotiate an agreement covering how the land will be used and reclaimed and what will be paid to landowners for damaged land. If no agreement is reached, energy companies must obtain a bond to cover possible damage.
• Kansas and North Dakota adopted requirements last year that oil and gas companies post bonds to cover land damage.
• New Mexico wrestled with legislation this year that would bolster landowners' rights but failed to pass the measure before adjourning in March.
• In Montana, the state's environmental quality council is studying the issue and will make recommendations before next year's legislative session.
Here in Colorado, the Legislature is working on a bill that would give landowners more rights. Like the Wyoming legislation, it would require energy companies to try to negotiate a land-use agreement with property owners and increase bond levels to cover damages and lost property values if the two sides can't agree.
"The entire Western United States is faced with this," says state Rep. Kathleen Curry, the Colorado bill's sponsor. She says her constituents want the law changed "to give them some voice in how drilling is conducted on private lands."
However, Curry's bill was amended to include a more industry-friendly definition of land damage, as the measure goes to the state Senate. "What I'm discouraged about is that I didn't want to leave the landowners with nothing, which is what they're left with," she says.
Energy development in Colorado has increased dramatically in recent years. The state's oil and gas commission last year approved 4,363 drilling permits, 50% more than the previous year and 94% more than in 2003.
At the Bells' ranch, surrounded by the White River National Forest, signs of the energy push are everywhere. Drilling rigs loom in the distance, and nearly every gravel road leads to well pads. The Bells say their valley is now an industrial zone, with noise from trucks and drilling rigs and the smells of heavy oil and gas. They've had three large spills of diesel fuel and drilling liquids on their property.
"People came here because it's beautiful, it's isolated," Orlyn Bell says. "We need something on the books that says they have to compensate us."
Contributing: The Associated Press
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-21-split-estate_x.htm
=====
The Legalities of Rainwater Harvesting
By LEORA BROYDO VESTEL June 29, 2009, 9:18 am
Shutterstock Conservationist or scofflaw?
Just as people use the sun to generate power for their homes, many homeowners capture rainfall for a variety of uses — from washing dishes to watering gardens during dry spells. But rainwater harvesting .. http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/rainwater.shtml , as it is known, can be quite controversial — and in some Western states it is akin to theft.
Opponents of the practice argue that if rain or snowfall is captured, less water will flow to streams and aquifers where it is needed for wells and springs. If enough people hijack precipitation, the thinking goes, it would be cheating downstream users who are legally entitled to the water.
Proponents, meanwhile, see rainwater harvesting as a common sense solution to water shortages and storm water runoff – and find humor in the notion that collecting even small amounts of water is outlawed.
In Colorado, for example, it is illegal .. http://www.water.state.co.us/pubs/pdf/RainWaterBills.pdf .. for residents to divert rainwater that falls upon land they own unless they have explicit permission to do so. Even collecting rainfall in a backyard barrel can technically violate the law.
“The rain barrel is the bong of the Colorado garden,” wrote a columnist .. http://www.gazette.com/articles/rain-24956-water-barrel.html .. in the The Gazette .. http://www.gazette.com/ .. of Colorado Springs. “It’s legal to sell one. It’s legal to own one. It’s just not legal to use it for its intended purpose.”
Colorado’s assembly did ease the state’s restrictions a bit when it recently passed a bill .. http://www.leg.state.co.us/Clics/CLICS2009A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/49D434%209AC4A73794872575370071F5D4?Open&file=080_01.pdf .. allowing residents in rural areas who don’t have access to municipal water supplies to capture rainwater or snow melt from their rooftops. (See this article from The Times .. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html .)
But Jeff Kray .. http://www.martenlaw.com/lawyers/jkray.php , a lawyer with the Marten Law Group .. http://www.martenlaw.com/ .. who specializes in the legalities of rainwater harvesting, said the law’s passage is hardly a watershed moment.
“Colorado is saying, ‘We’re opening the door to rainwater catchment.’ Not really,” Mr. Kray said. “They’re cracking the door.”
Washington State is also looking for incremental ways .. http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/hq/rwh.html .. to allow rainwater capture without affecting existing water rights. While the state does not require permits for “de minimis,” or negligible, amounts of rainwater harvesting, like the amount that can be captured in a backyard barrel, it is struggling to establish a reasonable cut-off point.
“Is 50 gallons, 300 gallons or 3,000 gallons de minimis? Where’s the number?” Mr. Kray said. “That’s been the major hang-up.”
In contrast, states in the arid Southwest have literally opened the floodgates to rainwater collection.
In Texas, incentives are offered .. http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publications/reports/RainwaterHarvestingManual_3rdedition.pdf .. to encourage the purchase of rainwater harvesting equipment, with up to $40,000 in rebates available to businesses that install collection systems.
Meanwhile, in Santa Fe County, N.M. .. http://santafecounty.org/about_us/water_harvesting_ordinance.php .. and Tuscon, Ariz. .. http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/water/docs/rainwaterord.pdf , installation of catchment systems on some new buildings is a legal requirement.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/the-legalities-of-rainwater-harvesting/
.. thanks. it's even more complicated than i thought .. what state are you in?
By Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY Posted 3/21/2006 10:59 PM
SILT, Colo. — The construction crew showed up at Orlyn and Carol Bell's 110-acre ranch in western Colorado and began clearing a road to build a drilling pad for four natural gas wells on their hay pasture.
Carol and Orlyn Bell inspect an air monitor on their ranch in Silt, Colo., where EnCana is drilling.
By Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY
For the Bells, the bulldozers arriving capped nine months of frustrating negotiations with energy giant EnCana over how the company would drill on their land. When the construction was imminent in September 2004, the couple capitulated to the company's terms: a payment of $2,000 for each of the roughly 8 acres used for drilling, roads and pipelines, rather than $4,500 an acre they had sought.
The Bells' experience reflects a sometimes painful reality in much of the West, where people who own millions of acres don't own the minerals below ground. For landowners without mineral rights, there is nothing they can do to prevent drilling on their property, and often little they can do if the energy company declines to be helpful.
That land-ownership pattern, much of it a holdover from 19th-century homesteading laws that gave settlers free land but left the mineral rights with the government, is known as a "split estate."
Today, the federal Bureau of Land Management controls mineral rights on about 58 million acres of private land and is selling the rights at a rapid pace to energy companies. Mineral rights on millions more acres are controlled by private parties other than landowners.
Carol Bell says the split-estate system reduces her property value. "When we negotiated with EnCana, we wanted fair compensation for land that was worth a lot of money," she says. "We negotiated and negotiated and negotiated, and they wouldn't budge."
EnCana spokesman Doug Hock says the company reached agreements with 97% of landowners last year but generally doesn't comment on specific negotiations. "We work hard to be good neighbors," Hock says. "I think we tried very hard to work with" the Bells.
As energy development surges across the region, the split-estate issue has become a flash point between the energy industry and landowners. It's happening not just in isolated places but also in growing rural areas around Silt and even in some urban areas such as Greeley, Colo.
In response, legislatures in a half-dozen Western states are struggling with how to re-balance a system that gives owners of mineral rights virtually unchecked power to drill on land owned by others:
• The Wyoming Legislature enacted a law last year that requires energy companies to give landowners at least 30 days' notice of drilling operations. The companies are to negotiate an agreement covering how the land will be used and reclaimed and what will be paid to landowners for damaged land. If no agreement is reached, energy companies must obtain a bond to cover possible damage.
• Kansas and North Dakota adopted requirements last year that oil and gas companies post bonds to cover land damage.
• New Mexico wrestled with legislation this year that would bolster landowners' rights but failed to pass the measure before adjourning in March.
• In Montana, the state's environmental quality council is studying the issue and will make recommendations before next year's legislative session.
Here in Colorado, the Legislature is working on a bill that would give landowners more rights. Like the Wyoming legislation, it would require energy companies to try to negotiate a land-use agreement with property owners and increase bond levels to cover damages and lost property values if the two sides can't agree.
"The entire Western United States is faced with this," says state Rep. Kathleen Curry, the Colorado bill's sponsor. She says her constituents want the law changed "to give them some voice in how drilling is conducted on private lands."
However, Curry's bill was amended to include a more industry-friendly definition of land damage, as the measure goes to the state Senate. "What I'm discouraged about is that I didn't want to leave the landowners with nothing, which is what they're left with," she says.
Energy development in Colorado has increased dramatically in recent years. The state's oil and gas commission last year approved 4,363 drilling permits, 50% more than the previous year and 94% more than in 2003.
At the Bells' ranch, surrounded by the White River National Forest, signs of the energy push are everywhere. Drilling rigs loom in the distance, and nearly every gravel road leads to well pads. The Bells say their valley is now an industrial zone, with noise from trucks and drilling rigs and the smells of heavy oil and gas. They've had three large spills of diesel fuel and drilling liquids on their property.
"People came here because it's beautiful, it's isolated," Orlyn Bell says. "We need something on the books that says they have to compensate us."
Contributing: The Associated Press
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-21-split-estate_x.htm
=====
The Legalities of Rainwater Harvesting
By LEORA BROYDO VESTEL June 29, 2009, 9:18 am
Shutterstock Conservationist or scofflaw?
Just as people use the sun to generate power for their homes, many homeowners capture rainfall for a variety of uses — from washing dishes to watering gardens during dry spells. But rainwater harvesting .. http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/rainwater.shtml , as it is known, can be quite controversial — and in some Western states it is akin to theft.
Opponents of the practice argue that if rain or snowfall is captured, less water will flow to streams and aquifers where it is needed for wells and springs. If enough people hijack precipitation, the thinking goes, it would be cheating downstream users who are legally entitled to the water.
Proponents, meanwhile, see rainwater harvesting as a common sense solution to water shortages and storm water runoff – and find humor in the notion that collecting even small amounts of water is outlawed.
In Colorado, for example, it is illegal .. http://www.water.state.co.us/pubs/pdf/RainWaterBills.pdf .. for residents to divert rainwater that falls upon land they own unless they have explicit permission to do so. Even collecting rainfall in a backyard barrel can technically violate the law.
“The rain barrel is the bong of the Colorado garden,” wrote a columnist .. http://www.gazette.com/articles/rain-24956-water-barrel.html .. in the The Gazette .. http://www.gazette.com/ .. of Colorado Springs. “It’s legal to sell one. It’s legal to own one. It’s just not legal to use it for its intended purpose.”
Colorado’s assembly did ease the state’s restrictions a bit when it recently passed a bill .. http://www.leg.state.co.us/Clics/CLICS2009A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/49D434%209AC4A73794872575370071F5D4?Open&file=080_01.pdf .. allowing residents in rural areas who don’t have access to municipal water supplies to capture rainwater or snow melt from their rooftops. (See this article from The Times .. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html .)
But Jeff Kray .. http://www.martenlaw.com/lawyers/jkray.php , a lawyer with the Marten Law Group .. http://www.martenlaw.com/ .. who specializes in the legalities of rainwater harvesting, said the law’s passage is hardly a watershed moment.
“Colorado is saying, ‘We’re opening the door to rainwater catchment.’ Not really,” Mr. Kray said. “They’re cracking the door.”
Washington State is also looking for incremental ways .. http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/hq/rwh.html .. to allow rainwater capture without affecting existing water rights. While the state does not require permits for “de minimis,” or negligible, amounts of rainwater harvesting, like the amount that can be captured in a backyard barrel, it is struggling to establish a reasonable cut-off point.
“Is 50 gallons, 300 gallons or 3,000 gallons de minimis? Where’s the number?” Mr. Kray said. “That’s been the major hang-up.”
In contrast, states in the arid Southwest have literally opened the floodgates to rainwater collection.
In Texas, incentives are offered .. http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publications/reports/RainwaterHarvestingManual_3rdedition.pdf .. to encourage the purchase of rainwater harvesting equipment, with up to $40,000 in rebates available to businesses that install collection systems.
Meanwhile, in Santa Fe County, N.M. .. http://santafecounty.org/about_us/water_harvesting_ordinance.php .. and Tuscon, Ariz. .. http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/water/docs/rainwaterord.pdf , installation of catchment systems on some new buildings is a legal requirement.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/the-legalities-of-rainwater-harvesting/
.. thanks. it's even more complicated than i thought .. what state are you in?
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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