Fracker Uses Brand New PA. Law to Sue 60 Property-owners for access (110 yr. old leases)

[JPZenger]

Last edited Thu Aug 1, 2013, 04:31 PM - Edit history (2)

http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4447866-74/eqt-gas-law#axzz2ajxNpghL

I bet the frackers had that lawsuit ready even before the frackers wrote the brand new state law.

Excerpt:

"EQT Corp. has sued scores of landowners in Allegheny Co. for access to their properties under a recently enacted law that gives gas drilling companies the power to combine some neighboring parcels into drilling units without compensating owners. The 69 individuals and one golf course ... are accused of blocking the company from conducting surveys on their land to determine where to drill for shale gas....Attorney Robert Burnett ...said the state “gave the drilling companies a weapon to beat down landowners,” he said.

“Prior to the bill, we were working with landowners to obtain modifications and, although this bill means we no longer need to do that, EQT will honor those offers,” Robertson said. “It was determined that putting the issues before a court would be the most expeditious way to reach resolution.”

The law, which the governor signed on July 9, gives drillers power to pool leased properties into one unit for wells that drill sideways.... The Forward contracts, like most old oil and gas leases, don't mention pooling and so the law makes it clear that Downtown-based EQT can combine them into units it needs without permission from landowners ... EQT is looking to cash in on land it controlled long before the shale gas boom. Its subsidiaries ...kept gas leases alive for decades ... with one lease dating to 1899..."

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If you enjoyed this news item, you might also enjoy reading about how a private natural gas pipeline company is using public condemnation powers to acquire 300 miles of land for a new pipeline across the length of PA to reach a port along the Delaware River.

Normally pipeline companies cannot condemn private land, but they can in this case because 1/2 mile of the pipeline crosses into the state of Delaware.

That new pipeline will make it easier to sell natural gas from PA to overseas countries, where the prices are much higher. That resulting demand could cause a second wave of a boom in fracking in PA.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10744366

[atreides1]

1. And Pennsylvanians just let this happen

See what happens when the only issues you're concerned with are guns, god, and some Black Muslim in the White House?

You do stupid shit like vote for politicians who will sell your children, and toss you under a bus for their own benefit!!!

Idiocracy is now!

[emsimon33]

2. At what point do citizens finally rise up???!!!

[FSogol]

3. When the Diet Coke and Chalupas run out.

[MadrasT]

6. When the Steelers go bankrupt?

[Pat Riot]

8. In other words, when hell freezes over. nt

[TheBlackAdder]

4. The funny thing is: Many in Allegheny County & in PA are AGENDA 21 CONSPIRACY THEORISTS

They think that the UN is plotting to steal people's property for ecological reasons.

Yet, they allow oil companies and corporations to do the same thing.

[truedelphi]

5. I am not following you. It is not individual people that

Are allowing the natural gas frackers to go in and get access to individual homes and the golf course - it is the government officials letting this happen.

Since close to half the people in any given region of the country no longer vote, and the other half has only candidates that represent the interests of the One Percent available to vote for, (for the most part), those government officials end up being the puppets of Big Industry.

And then when you follow the careers of those puppets after they leave office, they are cashing in on their connections. Look at how Ed Rendell is now a big player for that hideous energy firm in Texas, that is behind so much fracking.

Agenda 21 is a science fiction, but reality seems to be getting a whole lot of cues on how the game is played from that sci fi. Maybe the UN won't ever send its troops here - but once this nation no longer has drinking water, and irrigation water, for any but the top 15% of the "economic consuming interests," The Agenda 21 proponents will look like goddamn prophets.

[TheBlackAdder]

7. Many of the legislators and constituents are Agenda 21 paranoid.

They listen to Beck and others saying how the treehuggers are going to take their land...

yet they have NO problem allowing corporations and their representatives passing bills like that in their state.