WVU Owns Mineral Rights

BOE only has surface rights at ‘green school’

Morgantown Dominion Post - 21 May 2011
By Jason Howerton

The mineral rights on the site of the yet-to-be-built Eastwood Elementary School on Mileground Road do not belong to the Monongalia County Board of Education (BOE), according to Project Manager Randy Graft.

Graft said whoever owns the mineral rights also retains the right to drill on the land.

According to the deed, WVU owns the mineral rights to the land. What that means will need to be further researched, WVU spokesman John Bolt said.

If plans for the “green school” go through, future drillers would have to comply with regulations governing how close to a building they can drill, Graft said. The university could lease or sell the property’s mineral rights to a company to drill for natural gas.

“Just because they have the rights doesn’t mean they can drill 20 feet from the school,” Graft said.

But they could drill 200 feet from the school, according to West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) spokeswoman Kathy Cosco.

“The statute says that you can’t drill a well within 200 feet from an existing water well or a dwelling without written consent from the owner,” she said.

That is twice the length of a football field.

Though the word “dwelling” usually indicates a house, Cosco said most likely a school would fall under the same guidelines.

In the instances where the surface owner and the mineral rights owner are unable to reach an agreement, the matter is usually handled in civil court, she said.

“It comes down to whoever gets there first,” Graft said. “And we are getting there first.”

Monongalia Board of Education President Dr. Barbara Parsons said the board has not discussed the mineral rights with WVU.

“I don’t think that 200 feet is far enough away from a school to have drilling,” she said.

Parsons also said there would likely be a lengthy appeals process if WVU or a drilling company wanted to access the land.

“No one can guarantee that mineral rights won’t pose a problem, especially with the issues surrounding Marcellus shale drilling,” she said. “But hopefully we won’t ever have to deal with that.”

Monongalia Board of Education Superintendent Frank Devono was not available for comment in time for this report.