Thou Shalt Not Steal Gas
On today’s front page, we launched an ambitious and complex eight-day series that involves millions of dollars and affects thousands of Southwest Virginia property owners. Between unmasking other forms of malfeasance, corruption and outrage, investigative reporter Daniel Gilbert has spent portions of 13 months – so far – delving into an issue that affects many thousands of residents and absentee landowners from across the country. Nearly 20 years ago, gas corporations and the commonwealth of Virginia figured out that below the surface of seven Southwest Virginia counties lies vaporous gold – pools of methane gas worth billions of dollars. The legislature crafted a law that allows these companies to extract the gas without the knowledge or consent of private property owners – a subterranean form of eminent domain. Those companies are getting rich. The moms and pops who own the land are getting screwed. That’s because the state created a system whereby coal companies, who were deeded the coal a century ago by landowners, are fighting with those landowners’ heirs over a paltry portion of the gas royalties.
Closely akin to the gas storage field cases is the issue of gas removal. Daniel Gilbert, of the Bristol Herald Courier, outlined in the first of an 8 day series of articles, the outrageous conduct by which a legislative body has enabled producers to divest many Southwest, Va property owners of their valuable rights. This series is described by J. Todd Foster, editor of the Bristol Herald Courier in the editorial.
