Got some catchin up to do...

[BODCAW JACK]

Well guys I've been a little out of the loop lately. I haven't had many opportunities to talk to local businesses and what not about the expo due to some crappy circumstances.  I know this is off the subject and probobly doesn't belong on this thread, but I really need some help.  I came home last week to a stake with orange flagging on it in my yard.  After asking my neighbor, who also  has several flags in his yard, I found out a local oil/gas company is planning on drilling a well in his yard.  The location/pad will extend into my yard.  This pretty much eliminates about 1/3 of my land since I'm only on 1 acre.  After researching online the only thing I've found out is that since I don't own mineral rights I can't do much about it.  I know they can't get within so many feet of a residence and I would think that since they're not actually drilling on my land they couldn't extend onto my property.  The proposed pad would also cover up my field line to my septic tank.  Anybody who knows anything about this please help!!!! I need all the info I can get!

[Kevin]

I work for an environmental engineering firm. We work for all the oil and gas companies (BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillps, etc.) I'm in business development, so I'm not expert on stuff like this, but I can ask around and see if anybody knows what options you might have.

Do you know exactly what they are going to be doing there? Are they fracking?

[Fly Tier]

I hope they ain't going to do any fracking,I know someone that had a gas co. that did some fracking on their property and it missed up their well water,you could literly light a match to their water coming out of their sink and it would burn.

[BODCAW JACK]

Not sure what they're up to yet.  I don't even know if they're drilling a gas well or oil well.  So far they haven't had the common courtesy to even contact me.  I'm gonna contact them today though, try to stay level headed, and I'll let ya'll know how it goes.

[ArkansasSloughboy]

Even if you don't own the mineral rights, you do own your surface rights. They can't just build a pad on you without having to negotiate with you. However, if you refuse there is the possiblity that they will have that portion of you property condemned. If that happens you will still be compensated. Usually if you are seeing some stakes they are preliminary and they put the stakes down so that when a right of way agent comes around they can not only talk to you about it, but show you where they are planning on doing what.

[blindset61]

I've never had that happen to me, but I do know that mineral rights take precedence over surface rights in AR, however, all surface damage has to be mitigated.  That usually doesn't slow down most drilling, as the surface damages, such as field lines, septic tanks, salt water loss, etc has little dollar value compared to the oil/gas extraction.

Hope for a dry hole if the drilling does actually occur.

Are you real familiar with the land?  Just asking, as on occasion you find old cemetary remains-new or native american in Columbia County.

[BODCAW JACK]

Yeah, there are alot of old cemetaries around here.  Matter of fact, the one that my family uses has headstones of confederate soldiers in it.  There are tons of old cemetaries out in the woods just about everywhere you go.