How do I learn more about the wells on my property?
Louisiana landowners have a helpful resource when investigating what is happening on their property. The state maintains a website—www.sonris.com—which houses lots of data on oilfield sites. By using the “GIS” system on the website, you can look at your property using aerial photos, with overlays showing each production well, disposal well, and some pits. “Some” pits because many pits are not reflected on the site. And some of the data is incorrect, leading some landowners to find the wells on their property located incorrectly.
Once you have located your property, you can use the tools to pull up the full well file, production pit files, and other important information about your well.
Some important information to look for is the well serial number and the status code. This will tell you if the well is producing, orphaned, or “future utility”. The Sonris app gives you the ability to review the full “well file”. But note that this is not complete. There are often files that do not appear in this formal “well file,” such as inspection reports from DEQ. If you want to know “the story” of what has happened on an oilfield site on your property, you should contact a Louisiana attorney to review your site.
How do I get an operator to plug a well on my property?
If an operator has abandoned your property without plugging a well, you may want to force them to plug it. There are many reasons to want a well plugged. An operator who leaves a site without plugging it will generally “cap” the well with a small top. But wells can degrade and eventually crack over time, threatening your groundwater and surface with highly potent contamination. Unfortunately, Louisiana law makes it easy for operators to label their own wells as “future utility” in order to “kick the can down the road” and delay plugging a well indefinitely. That does not mean that a landowner is entirely out of luck.
If you are concerned that an operator has “future utility” wells on your property but that the operator should plug the well, you should speak with a Louisiana attorney about your rights.
What are some risks of holding onto contaminated property?
If you have oil and gas wells on your property, and you become suspicious that there may be contamination, you should act quick. Some Louisiana laws provide that if you do not file suit within one year of discovery of a problem that you lose the right to force a cleanup. While the law has certain rare exceptions, it is important to consider this “countdown” clock.
If you do pass the one-year “prescriptive” period (as it is known under the law), there may be other ways to get your property repaired.
But if you do not get your property cleaned up, and there is contamination, there are several risks. First, your property value could collapse. Contaminated property generally cannot be developed without addressing underlying contamination. Second, even the sale of the property is undermined. Land transactions generally involve financing by a bank, but few banks will finance a piece of property that is contaminated because in foreclosure the bank would end up saddled with contaminated property, and a possible liability. For this reason, it can be extremely difficult to sell any property where it has become unmarketable due to contamination.
If you are concerned about your property and possible contamination, you should speak with a Louisiana lawyer very quickly in order to ensure that any rights you may have do not expire.