CANDY FIGHTS COAL

Based on a legal principle called “split estates,” natural gas and coal companies may own mineral rights on the ranch of a Mars candy bar billionaire who objects to development.

A local oil and gas industry advocate suggested Forrest E. Mars, Jr., resolve the problem by buying out the companies that own his mineral rights. But Mars may not want to be in the fossil fuels business.

He and many other residents of the region are particularly worried about natural gas drillers’ practice of pumping out underground water reserves to get at gas pockets and letting the water run off.

The waste of water, of course, is only the beginning of the story when it comes to coal mining.

From Judith Lewis’ review of Michael Shnayerson’s 'Coal River' in the January 6 LA Times:

" ‘Something looks very wrong with West Virginia,’ begins Michael Shnayerson's Coal River, the story of the legal fight to stop a staggeringly destructive process known as mountaintop removal mining. Viewed from the air, Shnayerson writes, the land bears scars that resemble cancer, or blight, ‘except that there's nothing for a blight to infect: everything, from trees to grass, is gone.’

"For the last two decades, in an accelerating pursuit of faster and cheaper ways to pull coal from the land, more than 1.5 million acres of land in the storied Appalachian Mountains have been blown away with explosives. Ancient forests have been clear-cut, streams buried and wildlife uprooted. Slurry, laden with heavy metals, pours down the stricken mountains; floodwaters surge unrestrained by vegetation into once-pristine backyards and subsistence gardens. Children in local schools downwind of waste pits complain of nausea and headaches. In one Appalachian town, where people have lived off the land for generations, coal-mining's pollution has dropped life expectancy to 55…"



Candy Billionaire Fights Energy Firms
Matthew Brown, January 8, 2008 (AP)

WHO
Forrest E. Mars Jr., former CEO, Mars, Inc. and owner, Diamond Cross ranch; Loren O'Toole, attorney, Diamond Cross ranch; coal and natural gas developers Fidelity Exploration and Production (Bruce Williams, vp), Pinnacle Gas Resources (Chris Mangen, attorney); Northern Plains Resource Council (Beth Kaeding, chairwoman); Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation (Tom Richmond, administrator)

WHAT
Mars is fighting natural gas drilling and coal mining development in the northern part of the Powder River Basin of his Diamond Cross cattle ranch in Montana.



WHEN
- The Wyoming portion of Powder River Basin resources has been steep in the last decade.
- Development has only begun pushing north into Montana recently.
- Mars began buying up the Montana land in 2003.
- A crucial hearing between Mars and Pinnacle Gas Resources over “split estates” will be January 8 in state district court.

WHERE
Natural gas and coal development are extensive and lucrative in the southern Powder River Basin in Wyoming. Mars wants to keep development out of the Tongue River region of Montana where the Diamond Cross ranch is.

WHY
- Mars, Inc., makes Snickers, the Mars bar, M&Ms and other food products. Mars’ worth is estimated at $14 billion.
- Mars’ stated objection to gas and coal development is due to its excessive use of water resources.



QUOTES
- Williams, Fidelity: "The perception that it's the big guy (energy companies) versus the little guy (ranchers). In this instance that's not the case…"
- Beth Kaeding, conservationist Northern Plains Resource Council: "Forrest has a lot of money but he's in the same boat as anybody else…If you don't own the mineral rights, it doesn't matter how huge your ranch is, how politically powerful you are, how much money you have…Mineral rights trump surface rights."
- Loren O'Toole, Diamond Cross attorney: "Blocking development]'s not the point…The point is we can't lose all that water and at the same time have no provision to put it back."
- Chris Mangen, Pinnacle attorney: "As a lawyer it should come down to the facts and the law, but there's no denying that money talks…"
- Tom Richmond, administrator, Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation: “[A decision for Mars would be] a significant change in the interpretation of state law that says you do have access…"