Chief Logan State Park and Gas Drilling

Nov
07
2010
SUPREME COURT ALLOWS DRILLING IN CHIEF LOGAN STATE PARK

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has upheld the Circuit Court of Logan County’s decision to allow the drilling of gas wells in Chief Logan State Park.

The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the Friends of Blackwater, and Cordie Hudkins (a retired Chief of the West Virginia State Park System in the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources) had all appealed the Circuit Court’s ruling, as had the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources and the West Virginia Department of Energy.

There is a statute that prohibits drilling for gas in state parks. The appellants (the Conservancy, Friends of Blackwater, etc.) had argued that the statute prohibited the proposed drilling.

While it did not expressly say so, the Supreme Court apparently agreed that the statute would, under some circumstances, prohibit the drilling. In this case, however, the Court held that the statute did not apply. The minerals were severed from the surface when the landowners conveyed the surface to the state and kept the minerals. The Court ruled that, since this conveyance took place before the statute prohibiting drilling in parks was passed, the statute did not apply here and could not prohibit the drilling.

What effect this ruling would have at other state parks is unclear. The ruling would appear to uphold the statute prohibiting drilling for gas in parks only when the minerals were severed from the surface after the statute became effective. While the statute has been modified, the earliest version was in 1961.