Gazette editorial: A special place for nuisances
From the Charleston WV Gazette Mail, Friday, March 4, 2016
Should a gas driller — or anyone else — be able to shine a bright light into your house all night, every night, disturbing your sleep, depleting your health and interfering with your enjoyment of your home and property? A significant number of legislators appear to believe so.
The Senate passed SB 508 to give businesses immunity from private nuisance lawsuits as long as they are not violating a law, regulation or specific permit terms.
Disappointingly, two Democrats, bill co-sponsor Corey Palumbo of Kanawha and Bob Plymale of Wayne, joined with most Republicans to support the bill 20-12. Two Republicans, Dave Sypolt of Preston and Chris Walters of Kanawha, sensibly voted against the bill.
So a driller who keeps bright lights on at all hours, makes a lot of noise or spews a lot of dust, can go right on doing it under this bill, and it wouldn’t do a frustrated neighbor any good to go to a judge and make the case that someone is being a nuisance.
This bill is now before the House Judiciary Committee. It is one of a suite of bills the Legislature has taken up at the behest of the natural gas industry. Thankfully, the Senate actually rejected one, SB 596, that would have allowed drillers to send their surveyors onto private property without permission and before any permit was approved.
But on this one, the Senate got it wrong. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, said the bill would cut down on frivolous lawsuits, saying, “Some of our best corporate citizens are being subjected to 200 and 300 lawsuits.”
A company hit with more than 200 nuisance suits might consider that where there is smoke there is fire. Perhaps drillers should look for ways to be better neighbors. Under this bill, businesses would be shielded from a nuisance suit unless they violate their permit or break a law or regulation.
But as the Gazette-Mail’s David Gutman reported, gas well permits don’t address some of the big headaches afflicting neighbors, such as noise, light and dust 24 hours a day. When the Legislature passed gas drilling legislation in 2011, lawmakers specifically excluded those things.
The state Department of Environmental Protection was assigned to study those issues, but the WV-DEP was slow to finish its report, and the Legislature has been slower to care. On top of all this, lawmakers added another insult to the bill. Not only will a lowly homeowner or neighboring business likely not be able to seek any help from a court, but a citizen would be required to give a business 60 days’ notice of the intention to file a nuisance lawsuit. No other private corporation receives such gentle consideration.
This is a damaging bill, disrespectful of other property owners. House members who know better should say so, and urge their colleagues to reject it.
See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/gazette-opinion/20160304/gazette-editorial-a-special-place-for-nuisances#sthash.1LwCqKGt.dpuf
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LETTER to Charleston Gazette Mail, March 6, 2016
Palumbo shouldn’t have sponsored drilling bill
Just when I felt the Legislature couldn’t get any more disappointing, along came Sen. Corey Palumbo, D-Kanawha, and his sponsorship of a bill that would block lawsuits by landowners against gas drillers that damage their homes. He wants to allow drillers and other companies to do work near your homes without paying the consequences if one of those firms would mess up your drinking water or perhaps cause a crack in your home.
First, I was shocked that Palumbo would vote for, much less sponsor, this legislation.
I grew up in the Charleston area and admired the public service of the Palumbo family through the years. I wonder what his late father, also a senator, would think about this situation.
You see, Palumbo is a lawyer for these companies. It would seem the ethical thing to do would have been to recuse himself from voting on such legislation — not sponsoring the bill. I’m told there is no recusing oneself, but there are other ways to avoid a vote on an issue where you have a conflict. He calls the suits “a nuisance.”
I wonder if he would feel the same way if it were his home that suddenly had no potable drinking water because of a gas driller.
Submitted by: Paul Wallace, Charleston, WV
See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article-/20160306/letter-palumbo-shouldnt-have-sponsored-gas-drilling-bill#sthash.JHWV3Adw.dpuf
Republican legislative leaders attacking private property rights
LETTER to EDITOR, Charleston Gazette Mail, March 6, 2016
SB 508 is not a bill against frivolous lawsuits or trial lawyers. This is a private property rights issue. The nuisance suit law is an old law to protect people’s right to enjoy their home and property.
For example, when you finally settle into your dream home and have a neighbor build a pig farm next door, it does not physically damage your property but, makes your life unbearable and you can no longer enjoy the investment in your home.
On a larger scale, the natural gas industry builds a 10-acre pad next door. The activity on the pad is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of an industrial site a few hundred feet from your bedroom window. You now have dust/mud, lights, noise, fumes, trucks coming to the pad. Loud compressors, speeding trucks, county roads impassable, and even worse your source of water becomes unusable.
You cannot move because the value in your home has dropped and you need that equity to relocate. The industry has found themselves with rural residents who were hopeless, until they were advised of their right to sue under the nuisance suit law. They now have some hope to get compensated for their damages.
Now, the Senate passes a bill to change the law for the industry. SB 508 changes the nuisance suit law to favor an industry that has created unbearable situations for innocent people.
We need a balance between rural residents and industry so we can all live together. The industry has bullied our mineral and landowners. Don’t change the law for them so they can continue their abuse.
Please tell delegates to vote “no” on SB 508. Changing the rules for these bullies to continue their abuse is a vote against private property owners.
Thank you Sen. Douglas E. Facemire and Sen. Mike Romano for voting “no” on this bill in the Senate. They are friends of rural residents.
Submitted by: Bill Suan, Lost Creek, Harrison County, WV
See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article-/20160306/letter-republican-legislative-leaders-attacking-private-property-rights#sthash.9qNufbCC.dpuf
Please vote no on SB-508.
Please help people to stay in West Virginia.
Thank you for your help at this time.
barbara
What are we trying to do here. How will these people find people to work on these gas rigs if all of the residents move to another state.
Oh I guess we will let out of state workers come in and take the jobs and take the money home with them.
Wake up lawmakers, we are running the good people of WV out of the State.
This is already taking place in many counties of the State