Texas Mineral Estate V Surface rights

This guy running this gas operation is a real peach.  Considering himself a "real Christian" and thereby insinuating that I am not, he went off on how I am attempting to intimidate his company.  I literally laughed out loud reading that. This guy is setting terms, telling me I cannot  drive on "their" drive way and that "the gate will not be moved" and other such things.

What other things? Well, they want to know if I'm going to be running electricity and installing a septic system, they want to know if it will "interfere with our operations".  I dunno dude, you tell me?  How is underground electric and a septic system located well away from the well going to affect you? And what do you tell the neighbors about their septic systems, sitting right next door in one case. 

He wasn't answering my questions so I stopped answering his.  Instead of a cordial reply to my queries, he just ignored all of that and went straight to "their" interests.  Greed is a nasty thing.  It drives you internally and causes you to think in ways you otherwise would not. They act as if they own the property, but I am slowly coming to an understanding of mineral rights versus surface/property rights.  

Yes, they are given wide latitude to do what they need to do, they are not given latitude to do anything beyond that.  I don't think the dude was too happy that I had done some research and had identified the Accommodation Doctrine (Texas).  I am not claiming any level of expertise here, but the rule is pretty self explanatory. Whatever the case, they are the bullies, not me.  I was trying to be nice, courteous, respectful - all of those types of adjectives - they were going to the throat, ignoring most of my verbiage and demanding information instead of giving any.  

So now, I think I best get a septic install company out there to give me an estimate - and more to the point - what type of system they can install and where it will go.  They won't charge for that and I need the info. Not for them, for me - is there a possibility that they would have to install it closer to this well and even if so, how would that possibly mess with their operation?  

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And how could electric going to pads affect their operation?  Those lines aren't even dug that deep into the ground, maybe a couple of feet down?  I would love to hear his logic on all of this, but I also would love him to start acting civilly.  Again, I have read that these gas/oil operators speak and act with impunity, difficult to deal with and don't care.  I even heard this from my realtor's husband today, describing his experiences working with gas well operations.  Horror stories abound all over the internet, in great detail I might add.  

Fortunately, most of that is referring to drilling operations.  Still, it is apparent that it drags on after the drilling is done and over with.  

The saga continues. But it was left with - let's cool things off and start back up on Monday.  

Yes, well I wasn't the party starting the trouble - until he went way too far with his demanding, aggressive attitude and then I started dishing a plate full of his medicine back to him. He didn't much care for that which is when he accused me of attempting to intimidate him and his company.  Whatever dude, grow a set, stop acting like god and come back down to earth with the rest of us.  

You'll like it here, trust me, just get rid of the god-complex.  

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End of that, onto other things. They all had a great time today at the zoo, pictures abound.  They went back to the hotel afterwards and played in the pool.  This is what I miss living on the road, everything that is fun and with people I like to hang out with.  They are going to the Science museum tomorrow and I suspect they will spend a good portion of time at the pool again before heading home.

I, meanwhile, am in the truck for the night at the yard.  I got back here around 8:40 pm, by the time I was done with paperwork, unhooking the truck and then backing under another trailer? It was far too late to be thinking about driving home and then turning around 7 hours later and coming back here.  

I'm definitely going to try to make this Oklahoma run a one day trip.   It's been happening a lot lately and I like it. If not one day, then I'll stop at the new truckstop in Pittsburgh and spend the night there. It looks like a nice place.  But yes, I will be on the road tomorrow and was informed by a friend that tomorrow is Father's Day and wished me a happy day.

Tomorrow is also Sunday, but it's whatever.  I do what I have to do until I can get out of this industry and go full time RV park stuff. If that ever even happens?  I don't know, lol, but whatever the case, it's time to go to sleep.

 This little deal I'm involved with now could very well be a too-good-to-be-true situation.  

Yesterday, after the man at the gas company said they were refusing to move the gate? I started doing research.  It took a few hours to finally come across the information I was looking for. The info I was searching out was property rights for the person that owns the land versus the person that retains the mineral rights to the land. The names are mineral rights holders and surface holders.  Surface holders are the people that own the land, mineral rights are the people that owned the land at one time, sold it off but held the rights to the underground minerals.

It turns out? The mineral rights owners have far more "dominance" than surface rights and are able to basically do whatever the hell they please.  At least, so it read on sites that were clearly on the side of the mineral rights holders. 

Trust me folks, I spent many hours researching this yesterday, I wanted to get to the bottom of this and find out whether I should even be trying to do this with that gas well there and these gas company people getting "confrontational" - their words and their increasingly aggressive behavior in the language they are using with me.  

I kept looking. I wanted to find anything that says anywhere that the mineral rights holder has the right to stop the surface right holder from accessing any part of his land.  I failed in that mission - as I hoped I would, but you can bet it wasn't because I wasn't trying. Google can be finnicky and you have to put the right words in the search field to find what you want. But if you don't know the terminology associated with whatever you are looking for, you may never find it. 

Still, my reading continued and I finally found sites that appeared to be more neutral - they weren't biased towards either side and were simply stating the facts as Texas law currently exists and a long standing history of Texas courts siding with mineral rights holders.

However, much of that - actually almost all of it - is referring to drilling operations and the rights the mineral owners have in bringing in vast amounts of equipment in order to search for the Texas T they are looking for.  The sob stories of landowners having their senses assailed with all of that equipment and the ensuing 24 hour per day noise, the lights, the odors, the dust, the amount of people they bring into those projects is actually shocking to people that didn't do any research whatsoever and weren't prepared for the vast intrusion into their daily lives that such operations invoke.

If you know me, you will know I don't get into much of anything without doing some sort of research first. In this case, it's been much more than other things I have gotten myself into - or got out of before I got into it after finding out certain information that led me to believe whatever it was/is isn't worth the hassle.

You see, in Texas, there is also an "Accommodation Doctrine". This is a synopsis I found of the doctrine, copied and pasted: "In 1971, Texas adopted the modern Accommodation Doctrine in an attempt to balance the scales between mineral and surface estates.³ It requires that owners of mineral estates reasonably accommodate the use of the surface estate.⁴ The doctrine is violated when the surface activities of the owners of the mineral estate are not “reasonably necessary” to extract the oil or gas if the mineral owner has other reasonable means of production available that will not interfere with the surface owner’s use. Simply put, if reasonable alternative drilling methods protecting the surface owner’s existing use are available, the mineral owner must make reasonable accommodations.^5"

 Is it reasonable for this company to have a gate over 900 feet from the entrance to their operation?  Your guess is as good as mine, but I would come to the distinct conclusion that it is not and hinders the ability for me to be able to use the "surface estate" in the manner I need to. It will cause me to have to use more land than I want to use for building driveways that are completely unnecessary.  

So, I wrote yet another letter - not having had received a reply from yesterday tho I didn't necessarily expect one - and informed him that, tho being no authority on the subject - it becomes clear to even the casual reader that mineral rights does not include barring land owners from their land.  And so on and so forth. Not worth going into all of it, I simply made my intentions clear and that I would use that road and that gate will be moved.  I offered no more ideas of spending more money to make them happy. They are filthy rich from these endeavors but they are also obviously quite greedy, as my readings have suggested.  

My intentions from all of this is to see how far they are willing to take this before I sign on the dotted lines and hand over almost 17 grand in down payment money.  If it appears that it's going to be too filled with threats, legal action and the like, I will rethink all of this and potentially move on.  I lose $100 in option money, my earnest money remains intact.  I think there is a short period on that earnest money tho, like 7 days or something, I need to re-read that contract, for I will have to make up my  mind about it before that option period ends. If the option period expires, I will not lose that earnest money, I will simply move on with the purchase and come-what-may.  

Whatever the case, I'm at the yard in Brownsville, got down here at almost 1:00 am, have about 25 more minutes before I can leave here - there were two empty trailers when I arrived and 2 empty trailers were sitting at the loves last night when I drove through there. I always drive through the Loves parking lot to see if any drivers are waiting in their tractors for empties before I go to the yard to drop the loaded trailer.  Of course, a driver might be elsewhere waiting, that's just the most common place they go to for the night.

However, upon arrival, there were two empties sitting here and after my trailer was dropped, 3 full ones.  So, I'm hooking up to one in a few minutes, get it ready to go and get out of here post haste. She has me scheduled for another load going to Oklahoma tomorrow morning at 7:30 am. I can make it if all goes well and I get out of here when I can/should leave.

G'day

The youngest woke me up this morning with death curdling screaming at the top of his lungs. I was in dream land, haven't a pleasant dream at that, sleeping in - or trying to anyway - for the long day ahead of me. I'll be driving until at least midnight tonight in trying to get down to Brownsville.  

That's a wake-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed moment.  Like, pissed me off type of thing. Whatever happened, did he have to scream like that? Turns out? He was screaming because he wasn't allowed to have a waffle.

THAT kind of unbelievable screaming over a waffle.  

Onto other things. 

I found a site where RV parks advertise their parks - for free I might add - including numerous pictures of each site.  I typed in my area and started looking at some of the places.  I couldn't believe how junky and plain all of them looked. Not a few of them, all of them.  There was one place, I take that back, that had gone way overboard.  It looked too aesthetic.  I mean, just a turn off. There is a mix of finesse and nature to be had in any of these parks.

It is  considered camping after all.  But, having said that, some of them do really well. 

One of them, down by a town called Diboll -it's the road going down to Brownsville along 59 - built a new park last year and I wanted to definitely see that one.  He has that place 2/3rds filled up all the time.  Location is the only thing I could determine and after looking at the pics - location is the only thing he has going for him at that place. Or her, no offense to anyone's gender.  

I can see why campers are always complaining about being set in so close to the next camper on either side. I may waste some space in leaving up small stands of trees between site, but the loss is the gain.  People will have 70 foot long pads, 40 feet wide.