Published: October 11, 2007 10:32 pm         

Group formed to fight oil, gas ‘abuses’ in W.Va.

Gary Zuckett made sure he wasn’t buying any land near a surface mining operation when he decided to move to West Virginia.

What he didn’t know about real estate laws in West Virginia wound up hurting him.

Like many landowners, Zuckett found his surface rights took a back seat to mineral rights, a lesson driven home painfully when a 7-acre hay meadow in Ritchie County was invaded — legally — by a gas outfit to install a well.

Unfortunately for him, and many other displeased landowners, mineral rights and surface rights to the same real estate can be owned by different individuals.

“It’s now useless to me, but every year I have to pay taxes on it without ever getting a lick of damages or any hay since then,” Zuckett said Wednesday.

“I didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t move the thing 100 yards into the woods. I didn’t have any way to stop them.”

Zuckett is determined that landowners in the same boat and future ones aren’t victimized any longer by the law.

A new group has emerged, known as the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, assembled largely through the efforts of Dave McMahon, a Charleston attorney whose practice deals mainly with low-income clients. McMahon has been known for his work on getting more family court judges on the bench and efforts to help consumers mired in payday lending practices.

Come January, when lawmakers return to the Capitol, the new group plans to seek reforms on behalf of landowners.

“Our goal is to go to the Legislature in January with a surface owner’s bill of rights to help level the playing field,” said Zuckett, a WV-SORO organizer and executive director of the West Virginia-Citizen Action Group.

“The law in West Virginia is not very fair when it comes to how a person living on land is treated when the oil and gas companies come in to do the necessary work.”

An attempt was made to reach the West Virginia Independent Oil & Gas Association of West Virginia, but its executive director didn’t respond to a voice mail.

All an oil and gas firm is required to do before moving in to set up shop on another’s property is to file a two-week notice with the state Division of Oil & Gas. Some landowners feel the notice is too brief to file an adequate protest.

Unless the land has been sold “fee simple,” meaning the buyer assumes all the rights inherent with the land, the mineral rights can be held elsewhere and used as the owner sees fit.

Many a landowner has been surprised to see surveyor’s stakes driven into his land, since no prior notice needs to be given when property is checked out, Zuckett noted.

Existing law says the owner of the mineral rights may do “whatever is reasonably necessary” to extract minerals.

“It is quite skewed, but that’s how it works,” Zuckett said. “And there a lot of unhappy landowners out there.”

Besides seeking a law change, the group says the Oil & Gas office is woefully understaffed with a mere 14 inspectors to keep tabs on some 45,000 wells.

McMahon says the number rises by 3,000 new permits annually.

“Even the laws dealing with surface and water protection now on the books can’t be effectively enforced with such a lack of inspection,” the attorney said.

WV-SORO is reachable at 304-346-8929 or www.wvsoro.org.

“We all understand that we need to develop our mineral resources here in West Virginia,” Zuckett said.

“We want to wean ourselves from foreign oil. We all drive cars and use gasoline. But there just needs to be a little more fairness into the way they’re developed.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com