'Intimidation, Threats, and Lawyers': The Great American Gas
Fracking 'Land Grab'

Common Dreams staff 
October 2, 2012 
Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/02-0

Introducing a couple from Texas who, despite their objection,
had the natural gas sucked out from beneath their property by
the Chesapeake Energy Corporation without paying a dime in
compesation, an investigative report by Reuters recounts how
the gas giant has embarked on an aggressive nationwide
"landgrab" with a series of legal maneuvers and industrial
fracking equipment in tow.

In a special report, The casualties of Chesapeake's "land
grab" across America, a review of official state records by
Reuters shows that since January 2005, the Texas agency in
charge of granting waivers under a land regulation statute -
known as Rule 37 - "rejected just five of Chesapeake's 1,628
requests" to access land without the owners permission.

The exemptions granted by the state "effectively secured
[Chesapeake's] ability to drain the gas" from private
properties without royalties or other payments.

According to Reuters:

Chesapeake's use of the Texas law is among the latest
examples of how the company executes what it calls a "land
grab" - an aggressive leasing strategy intended to lock up
prospective drilling sites and lock out competitors.

Chesapeake has become the principal player in the largest
land boom in America since the 1850s California Gold Rush,
amassing drilling rights on more land than almost any U.S.
energy company. After years of leasing tracts from New York
to Wyoming, the company now controls the right to drill for
oil and gas on about 15 million acres - roughly the size of
West Virginia. Chesapeake defends the practive, but local
residents interviewed for the investigation were not coy with
their condemnation of Chesapeake.

"The principle of it is insane," said Calvin Tillman, a
former mayor of Dish, Texas, a small town north of Fort Worth
where drilling has been heavy. "Not only can they take your
property, but they don't have to pay you for it."

And in Ohio, where fracking has also come under heavy fire,
State Rep. Mark Okey, a Democrat who represents communities
where drilling has been heavy, said of the gas company: "They
believe in intimidation tactics. They threaten you. They will
yell at you-.It's all about getting you to sign [the lease
agreements]."

"You don't sign? We'll go around you. You don't sign? You'll
not get anything out of your mineral rights. You don't sign?
Then you're going to pay the price because we're going to
take those minerals from you."

To read the full Reuters report, go to 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/02/us-chesapeake-landgrab-substory-idUSBRE8910E920121002

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