Judge orders wind farm to be removed

In our family’s case it has to do with the electrical co op paying rent on the 3 high tension towers that are anchored and sitting in our hay and corn fields. They own the towers but not the dirt they are drilled into for the footings. They co own the above ground overhead easement under the cable run by paying a monthly fee but our crops go in under it because the dirt is not theirs.

 

Well, no, not necessarily. I'm trying to find all the particulars of it, but it appears that when the Osage purchased the reservation from the Cherokee in 1906, the Tribe retained all mineral rights to the property. This is pretty common with stuff like here:

I'm hoping to find something that's not behind a paywall to show me the actual court documents, because this *is* a really novel case. From what I can find, Enel and Osage acknowledge that they're in the wrong, but the difference is in the scope of how wrong. They want to pay a one-time fee for trespass, versus removal of the wind farm and any damages/profits/etc that Osage can wring out of them at trial.

This whole thing is pretty fascinating.

 

Back in the early 70’s when they were running this span from the Guadalupe Valley power plant in Seguin Tx out to Cibolo Tx. They wanted to pay my grandparents $100 one time fee for the ownership of the ground easement property. 40 ft wide over a mile long and fence it. Grand pa said No Thanks.

 

Yea, I have a feeling that it comes down to this specific land sale contract for this specific instance and is not really going to be a general ruling to cover anything else. Of course the media won't spin it that way, but well, when have they been actually accurate?

 

I thought this ruling was way off-base, but if you dig a bit, you'll see that rather than following standard law on mineral rights, this situation is covered by 25CFR Part 214, Leasing of Osage Reservation Lands, Oklahoma, for Mining, Except Oil and Gas.

In normal circumstances, the energy companies would be liable to pay for the minerals they improperly mined and the legal costs of rights holder and maybe a fine. But removal when they have the proper leases with the surface rights holders wouldn't be likely. (My ex-FIL won a similar case when the state used rock under the land they bought for right of way for the US212 relocation at the Missouri River as part of the project. He was paid for the rock. )

But apparently the language in Part 214 changes that. Found this in a news article :

That would explain the "continued trespass" argument that otherwise doesn't make sense. But I'm not digging into the Code to verify it.

And since the Supreme Court refused to hear the earlier part of this fight, it's unlikely this gets overturned.

 

Yeah, looking at it, there's a requirement that quarterly royalties be paid, among other things, and that's a weird percentage based system.

Hilariously, in 25CFR214.14 (Use of Surface Lands) the damages or unpaid royalties can be used as a lien against the property. 214.21 requires that lessees open the books to the Osage agency and the Department of the Interior.

Seems to me that someone(s) should've done their due diligence here. The failure to obtain a lease on the mineral rights is gonna cost them a lot.