“Your Property? Maybe Not As Much As You Think”

Recently in western Pennsylvania, mostly the counties of Greene, Indiana, and Westmoreland, property owners have been getting a rude awakening. In the last three years the request to the state have gone up 100% for permits of coal bed methane. In Pennsylvania, most property owners own the gas rights on their property but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that does not include coal bed methane; those rights are owned by the coal rights owner. Many of these coal rights have been put up for auction due to delinquent taxes and are being sold to these million dollar companies for as little as $100 for 45 acres of coal rights. Once these companies purchase the rights from that county, which are held at an auction that many times the land-owner has no idea of, these companies come onto private property where they change the landscape by digging, cutting down trees, and building roads. Then after they are done doing that the companies install the noisy wells that operate 24/7. Granted, the companies do pay the land-owner for damage however, the amount paid is decided by the company. There is no negotiation or estimates, what the company offers the land-owner is what they get. When an agent from Admiral Bay based out of Canada was interviewed on the news he said that there is no room to make a big deal out of it, people are just upset that they don’t own it and won’t make money off it.

Chairman’s View Point

This is just another case of the Government watching the backs of big business. I would like to know how much money these companies put into the politicians pockets. It’s a sad day in our country when we the people, the ones that work hard to purchase our property have it destroyed by some big greedy company and the politicians don’t do anything about it. As if the taxes we pay on our property isn’t enough, now we have to worry that someone else is going to cut down our trees, move our dirt, and place noisy wells in our back yards. All the while our elected officials, you know the ones that we elect sit back and collect a pay check doing nothing to protect the land of those that put them in office. This is a fine example of what is wrong today. This is one reason we need to stand up and show these politicians that we are not going to take it no more. We need a party that is for the people by the people, it appears to me that the current government is for big business and against the people.