An Alabama couple who thought buying their own property in the countryside 26 years ago actually meant they had a say on what happened on their land, has received a rude awakening. The couple has recently learned that a mining company decided to work on their land. Loretta Kennedy and her husband Kenneth purchased the more than 163-acre plot of land, and for the last 25 years, have enjoyed their own piece of paradise. Once the Black Warrior Methane Company began their underground drilling operation, according to the Kennedys, the drilling ruined their land.
To add insult to injury, the Black Warrior Methane Company filed an injunction against the Kennedys to keep them from approaching workers who are, in their eyes, operating illegally. A video has been released showing a Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputy meet the Kennedys and present them with an injunction to keep them from entering certain parts of their own property for the protection of the oil company. As crazy as it sounds, while the Kennedys own the land, the mining company owns the mineral rights.
“For 25 years, you had good drinking water, and all of a sudden it smells like rotten eggs,” Kenneth Kennedy told a local CBS news channel. According to reports, the Warrior Methane Company told them that they needed to remove methane from under their land. It was impacting a nearby mining operation and if not removed, could cause an explosion. That’s what they told them. The Kennedys and the company began to negotiate over use of the land, however those negotiations failed. After that, Black Warrior filed a lawsuit against the Kennedys, claiming it “has and holds all of the rights of way, easements, waiver of damage and permission to conduct drilling operations, and reservation of mineral and mining rights.”
The state is backing the oil company, stating that the owner of the mineral rights automatically has the right to drill for those minerals, with or without the permission of the land owner. The video, which has made its appearance on network news, shows the Kennedys trying to talk with the deputy who continues to tell them that he knows nothing about it and ‘is only doing his job’. “I think what they’re trying to accomplish is just don’t go there,” the deputy tells them. Loretta asks him, “We bought the property. It’s paid for, and then we don’t have a right to say who can come on it and who can’t? That don’t make sense to me at all.”
The willingness of the state to put the basic rights to one’s own land behind the needs of the oil companies is a moral crime, if not a legal one. The battle at the Kennedys’ property mirrors the battle at Standing Rock, and the oil construction sites around the US. Unfortunately, the era we are moving into is one that puts corporations over people, and will have no trouble at all allowing people to go homeless or lose basic resources, all in the name of Big Oil.
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All they have to do is agree to the mining on their property and at least half a share of any minerals found .