Post by Logan on Jul 8, 2016 7:03:29 GMT -6
NEW PLYMOUTH -- Farmers Tom and Marcia Roland look west across their fence at a humming industrial site with a producing natural gas well just 300 yards away.
Another producing well in the Willow Creek field, the center of Idaho’s developing oil and gas industry, lies just 500 yards to the south. The Rolands raise cattle and irrigated crops and operate a small dairy on their 500 acres in the rich Willow Creek valley. They’re excited oil and gas production has begun all around them and resulted in royalty checks for them and their neighbors.
But they don’t think the way Idaho structures its mineral rights, a process called integration, is fair. The way it’s done today, the state divides up mineral lands into 640-acre spacing units drawn along section lines.
“Because we’re on the wrong side of the section lines on a map, we derive very little payment or benefit from these wells,” said Tom Roland, standing at his fence. “Proximity to a well doesn’t really make a difference. It’s what side of the section line you’re on.”
Read more here: www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/letters-from-the-west/article87464172.html
Another producing well in the Willow Creek field, the center of Idaho’s developing oil and gas industry, lies just 500 yards to the south. The Rolands raise cattle and irrigated crops and operate a small dairy on their 500 acres in the rich Willow Creek valley. They’re excited oil and gas production has begun all around them and resulted in royalty checks for them and their neighbors.
But they don’t think the way Idaho structures its mineral rights, a process called integration, is fair. The way it’s done today, the state divides up mineral lands into 640-acre spacing units drawn along section lines.
“Because we’re on the wrong side of the section lines on a map, we derive very little payment or benefit from these wells,” said Tom Roland, standing at his fence. “Proximity to a well doesn’t really make a difference. It’s what side of the section line you’re on.”
Read more here: www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/letters-from-the-west/article87464172.html