Sign the petition HERE
From Creedo.
You’d think that Texas landowners should be able to say no to fracking on their property, right?
They can’t. The Texas Railroad Commission is twisting a century-old law to allow the industry to drill under landowners’ property even when they refuse to lease their land. And without paying them a penny.
It’s called a “Rule 37 exception” and the Texas Railroad Commission has granted thousands of them since 2005.1
Texas Railroad commissioners are elected officials, so they’re sensitive to public pressure. We need to speak out against this abusive practice that tramples on property rights for gas industry profit.
Tell the Texas Railroad Commission: Stop the fracking industry’s land grab.
Fracking contaminates water, pollutes the air, and clogs roads with diesel trucks hauling toxic chemicals, so it’s no surprise that many landowners don’t want it on their land.2
But Rule 37 exceptions–as well as similar laws in other states–are helping to drive the largest American land boom since the California Gold Rush. In states like Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, fracking companies are gobbling up millions of acres of land leases for fracking. Chesapeake Energy, which has applied for more Rule 37 exceptions in Texas than any other company, now has drilling rights to an area in the U.S. the size of West Virginia.
And while the industry pockets billions fracking for oil and gas, landowners and nearby residents are left holding the bag: flammable tap water,3 millions of gallons of toxic wastewater,4 cancer-causing air emissions,5 and even earthquakes.6
Nobody should be forced to cope with the devastating impact of fracking, especially not landowners who refuse to sign drilling leases on their own land. That’s why we need to demand that the Texas Railroad Commission stop throwing landowners under the toxic bus of the fracking industry.
Tell the Texas Railroad Commission: Stop the fracking industry’s land grab.
1. Brian Grow, Joshua Schneyer and Anna Driver, “Special Report: The casualties of Chesapeake’s ‘land grab’ across America,” Reuters, October 2, 2012
2. “Hydraulic Fracturing 101,” Earthworks
3. Abrahm Lustgarten, “Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking,”ProPublica, May 9, 2011
4. Ryan Delaney, “Study finds high risk to drinking water from fracking wastewater,”Innovation Trail, August 15, 2012
5. “Study shows air emissions near fracking sites may pose health risk,” University of Colorado Denver Newsroom, March 19, 2012
6. Terrence Henry, “How Fracking Disposal Wells Are Causing Earthquakes in Dallas-Fort Worth,” StateImpact Texas, August 6, 2012
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Do not forget that Chesapeake has also sold 1/3 of its Eagle Ford Shale interest to CNOOC, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Offshore_Oil_Corporation
Our mineral rights are the ONLY thing that can keep big energy off your fence line & out of your neighborhood. Mineral rights hold more power than any other rights regarding your property. Once you sign or they are taken from you, you have NO say. Energy companies will fight tooth and nail, using any and all tactics to obtain these rights and hold them with their dying breath. If you have not signed anything yet, please start here.
Isn’t it a same that we have to circulate such a petition in an effort to get our elected officials–whose salaries we pay–to protect our interest? Still, they will ignore us.
It is a huge shame. We are just so much collateral damage to them. Most pay closer attention and pander to their campaign contributors, and PACs. Follow the contributions and you can predict how they will vote. Quid Pro Quo.
The only way you end up owning land without the mineral rights is by not reading the deed at closing (where it’s stated that the transfer of ownership is subject to prior reservations of minerals or a multitude of other rights) which is later filed for public record for eternity. Not allowing owners of minerals who don’t own the surface estate to access their minerals by way of drilling is like selling someone a piece of landlocked property and then not providing an access easement. It’s basic stuff here and it’s irrational to not inform yourself of what you’re doing and then complain later.