Get out your hankeys: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) "clinically depressed" over ANWR

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
It's also true in many of the Eastern mining states, where coal companies own what's underground, and regular families own what's on top.

Yup. I own a house in coal country (Allegheny County, PA). I don't own the mineral rights.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Sava
I've been lurking at the DU and I've come across yet another moronic statement. A lot of DU'ers are saying things like:

"OMG we should drill for oil at GOP member's houses"

Are you sure it was DU that you where reading?

Originally posted by Chegitz
We should allow exploratory drilling for oil in the homes of GOP voters.

[Sava]

Originally posted by General Ludd



Are you sure it was DU that you where reading?

I didn't even see that!

[DanS]

Hmmm... That testimony has a lot wrapped up into it. On the question of running the slightly salty water down the well, the testimony indicates that the company on their property has a reinjection well and is using it. Indeed, the testimony complains of more than one company using it -- which is, of course, much more preferable than running the slightly salty water down the creek. But perhaps bringing water from another lease and reinjecting it on their lease technically violates the lease terms.

(The testimony indicates that they don't understand that a lease normally requires the surface landowner to accomodate roadbuilding and whatnot and the company doesn't have to negotiate yet another agreement with the surace landowner to build a road.)

The testimony regarding the company running the salty water down the creek indicates that the company may not have a reinjection well. But now that the water is to be considered a toxic substance by Wyoming, they could get their asses thrown in jail for doing that. I'm slightly surprised that it wasn't considered a toxic substance already, but as far as I can tell from the testimony, the wastewater in Wyoming isn't that salty.

My dad has several oil/gas wells that he uses for reinjection of brine (not this slightly salty water mentioned in the article). In Ohio, the driller is now required to have one reinjection well per lease, IIRC. He didn't like having to spend the money to test the wells for suitability for reinjection, but now that he's doing it, it works just fine.

[DanS]

I own a house in coal country (Allegheny County, PA). I don't own the mineral rights.

Is that because sometime in the past, a previous landowner split the rights?

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Are you sure it was DU that you where reading?

No, I read that one too. It was funny, but some of the stuff posted in this OT is funnier...