Letter to the Editor
Haze over the Red Desert
Sweetwater County, Wyoming
photo by Pat O'Toole
Today we went to the Red Desert to sort sheep which had gotten blown out and mixed during the storm. For the first time I can remember, we saw a haze from emissions, visible, I'm sure, due to a temperature inversion from the extreme cold (-15 degrees at the time of this photo).
In today's Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune, we saw the following letter:
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Editor:
I have read the Casper Star-Tribune article of Jan. 1 on eminent domain. Here we have another sad, sad story from a bleeding-heart rancher who has discovered that he does not own the minerals under his grazing rights. It still angers me that this paper has taken the stance that energy development is bad and ranchers are good and being harmed by all the coal-bed methane development.
The Star-Tribune took such pride in publishing an article on the front page when the EPA announced that they were seeking $55,000 in fines from my oil company. When EPA dropped the charges, the news story rated back-page space.
The article about the poor ranchers is typical of this newspaper's attitude of how the ranchers are being harmed whenever they do not own the mineral rights.
I have been to District Court hearings four times on right-of-way issues when the rancher did not own the mineral rights. In all four cases the judge ruled in our favor (oil company) because of the wording in the bill of sale when the surface rights were sold.
Basically the deed states that the mineral owner has absolute rights to re-enter the land to develop minerals, and the developer may use as much surface as necessary to produce the minerals. No compensation will be given to the surface owner for disturbance of natural grasses.
The Star-Tribune just does not print any of my letters to the editor anymore, for some reason. Probably because the editor is a bleeding-heart liberal who thinks energy development in Wyoming is bad for ranchers.
Ranchers benefit the most from energy development because they essentially pay no property taxes on their land and no taxes on the cattle. They are exempt from taxes on land where energy development is taking place. They are truly the freeloaders of our day.
The last paragraph of the eminent domain story contains the quotation from Barlow: "Right now it's like they already own your property, and you just deal with what's left."
This is a true statement. The rancher does not own the ground where grasses grow because the dirt is minerals. My advice is, "Get used to it, for that is the deal when the estate was severed."
BOBBY DAVIS, Upton
This letter originally appeared in the Dustin Bleizeffer's Star-Tribune blog, the Pipeline
Comments
Why that guy is hateful. Interesting twist that ranchers by his lights are bleeding heart liberals; I wonder how he would feel about a New Yorker like myself?
Posted by: Joan Chevalier | November 30, 2007 8:32 PM