Protect your interests

Every Landowner should know that a wind farm lease may damage and limit the use of one's own ground. I recently drilled a discovery well in Hodgeman County. If my original oil and gas lease would have been recorded one month later, as noted in the drilling title opinion, the wind lease would have been superior to my lease.

A subordination of the wind lease would have been required to allow development. The wind farm would have been in a position (not the landowner) to negotiate or not negotiate. This leaves a wind farm in a position to control leasing and development on the farmers ground. This control costs the wind farm pennies on the dollar for what a landowner might receive from an oil and gas lease. It also allows for leases as long as one hundred years. No wonder Boone Pickens, George Soros and others are leasing as much ground as possible throughout the most productive sedimentary basins in the USA. I would recommend that each of you take your leases to your attorneys to scrutinize and ask for a legal opinion as to whether the wind farm lease limits oil and gas or other development. What are the unintended consequences of such far reaching leases? One hundred and forty years ago, the railroads negotiated leases with the federal government to allow them the right to mine coal (for their coal burning locomotives) along the railroad routes. This seemingly benign lease is now being used to deny any ownership of minerals for thousands of landowners in the west and has metamorphosed to mean uranium, gold, silver, oil and gas, etc. This has spawned giant mineral companies that dwarf the railroads in size. If your lawyer will not give you an opinion, get another lawyer. A typical oil and gas lease is one page long. A typical wind farm lease is 20 pages long. I believe this difference is by design. Removing damaging language should be possible, if there are no ulterior motives. Under any circumstance, asking for an opinion, should allow your family protection.

Jerry Green

4350 Keystone