If you live near a gas shale deposit in North Carolina, you may be “volunteered” to market your drilling rights; plus more news, this week in CIB:

Administrative Watch: Drilling Whether Landowners Like it or Not

Landowners near fracking zones, you’ve been volunteered.

Under energy exploration legislation passed by the N.C. General Assembly, a special “Compulsory Pooling Study Group” was created to make recommendations on whether and when landowners could be forced to sell the drilling rights to natural gas deposits under their land. That study group last week issued its recommendations.

Among the key points, the Study Group recommended that landowners could be forced to sell drilling rights if at least 90% of the acreage in a “drilling unit” has been voluntarily leased to the drilling company first. This practice is known as “compulsory pooling”, and state laws vary from allowing it when as little as 1% of a drilling unit is leased (Arkansas) to banning compulsory pooling altogether (Pennsylvania, West Virginia).

Environmental and property owner protection advocates have condemned the practice of compulsory pooling, and provided mixed reviews of the study group’s recommendations.

Among the concerns raised, it was pointed out that in some areas, the 90% of acreage threshold would on average allow compulsory pooling to be forced upon more than half the owners in an average square-mile ‘drilling unit’. (Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA analysis of Lee County.)

James Robinson of the RAFI-USA Landowner Rights and Fracking Project commented, “While many of the landowner protections recommended by the Study Group would provide strong protection for compulsorily pooled landowners, a stronger outcome would have been a vote to not allow compulsory pooling.”

The Study Group’s recommendations are not binding upon the state legislature, which holds the final word in North Carolina on the future of “compulsory pooling” here.

Around the States: EPA Yanks Arkansas CWA Authority

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week notified the State of Arkansas that it has lost some of its most critical delegated authority to handle permitting within its territory under the federal Clean Water Act.

In an August 28 letter to the Arkansas Dept. of Environmental Quality, EPA’s Director of Water Quality Protection advised that he was “terminating EPA’s waiver of review” for a broad swath of water quality permits issued in that state. That’s bureaucratese for “Anybody in Arkansas who wants to dump in the water or wetlands there has got to come to us–EPA–for permission. Your state permits are no longer worth beans.”

EPA decided to yank Arkansas’ federal clean water authority after its state legislature passed a new law which (in EPA’s eyes) sufficiently weakened state water quality protection that it could no longer be trusted to meet minimum federal legal standards.

We suggest that the McCrory Administration and state legislators take warning. If the “rules deform” bill just approved here results in sufficient stripping of our state’s established water quality protection regulations, North Carolina could be next.

At that point, North Carolina industries, businesses, developers, and local governments will be looking at you to explain why permits that used to come on a reasonable time frame from the state Division of Water Quality are now sitting…and sitting…on an overloaded EPA staffer’s desk in Atlanta.

Additional background on this dispute can be found in an 8/15/13 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Campaign Watch: NCLCV’s Strong Kickoff for 2014

NCLCV’s preparations for 2014 kicked off with a strong start on August 28 in Raleigh. The annual fundraiser hosted by former NCLCV President Nina Szlosberg-Landis and Kel Landis featured as guests Sen. Josh Stein, Rep. Grier Martin, Attorney General Roy Cooper, and U.S. Representative David Price. Over 80 people gathered to help kickoff our 2014 political work. Thanks to all who participated!

Conservationists: NCLCV’s Rezeli Recognized

NCLCV’s Director of Engagement, Debra Davis Rezeli, was recently recognized by the Triangle Business Journal with one of its 2013 “Women in Business” awards. The awards recognize women in the Research Triangle region “who have proven to be dynamic and outstanding leaders with established track records of significant accomplishments in business and/or community service.” A former small business owner herself, Rezeli has worked for NCLCV since 2010, including handling the work of “rebranding” the organization from its former identity as Conservation Council of North Carolina. Congratulations Debra! For the full article, see here.

That’s our report for this week.