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Last Updated: Aug 25th, 2008 - 04:19:12
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TABER — Renewable energy belongs to Albertans, not the Alberta government, an umbrella organization of surface rights groups claimed Wednesday.
Court action is pending to test the organization’s position, said its founding board head.
Wresting that ownership from the province has become one of the mandates of the new United Landowners of Alberta, said Don Bester of Innisfail, ULA president. The other two mandates include to legally challenge the right to subsurface trespass and to ensure landowners their right to environmental stewardship.
In the group’s first official public meeting, tied directly to membership sales, ULA is prepared to challenge the province in court to allow landowners to claim ownership of renewable energy sources. using coalbed methane gas as the anchor. Coalbed methane is also known as Renewable Biogenic Gas.
ULA admits the province owns traditional oil and gas resources under the title of mines and minerals. But it has no ownership claim to renewable energy sources ranging from wind, geothermal and solar to coalbed methane.
Glenn Norman of Bowden, a ULA director, said there is no reference in the Law of Property Act or the Mines and Minerals Act to provincial ownership of renewable energy.
To foster landowner rights, ULA is challenging the Energy Resources Conservation Board’s right to issue drilling licences to oil and gas companies which do not have the landowner’s approval to develop coalbed methane that is under his subsurface ownership.
Norman said the Alberta Surface Rights Board will also be included in the court action because ULA feels it has not right to grant right of entry orders giving oil and gas companies the right to subsurface trespass and the right to directional drill under an adjacent landowner’s subsurface.
He said ULA is an umbrella organization and a lot of local organizations have already joined.
It organized mostly after learning of a need for a united voice for landowners, especially looking at resource ownership.
He pointed to a recent research document from the Alberta Research Council which was presented to the World Oil Conference that provides decisive legal argument supporting landowner ownership of coalbed methane under the classification of bio-farming.
The research through ULA by the Alberta Farmer’s Advocate proved landowners own heaven and hell, outside of the Mines and Minerals Act.
The umbrella is strongest when the organization is backed by large numbers of members. And it must deal with a wide range of issues, not just surface rights.
“This is the first time we have gone out in a rural setting and before the media to explain what we are going to do,” said Bester.
“I would like every landowner in the province would join the organization,” he said. “That is how they may gain control over their destiny, headed by control over their land, including access.”
Bester said ULA members stand to gain substantial economic benefit, partly because future development of methane gas will be under the control of landowners.
Landowners will have the option of developing methane gas or refuse if they decide the physical impact to their property is too great, he said. It could become a “crop share” situation were landowners can demand a share of the revenues of the gas sales.
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