The oil and gas industry has reaped profits without ensuring there will be money to plug and clean up their wells. In Oklahoma, that work could cost more than $7 billion if it falls to the state.
    • cobra89@beehaw.org
      8·
      6 months ago

      Did you even read the article? Due to the way Oklahoma law works the family owns the land and farm, but the oil companies have the “mineral rights” underneath which obligates the family to let them drill even after they tried in the courts to stop it.

      Oklahoma law allows the oil companies to drill an unlimited number of wells on only a $25,000 bond. So they just don’t clean up the wells and let the state have the bond because it’s cheaper.

      The problem is the state, not the family. Nowhere does it mention the family selling their rights to the minerals underneath or anything like that.

      I fail to see how the family is supporting the oil industry.

        • cobra89@beehaw.org
          5·
          6 months ago

          All the article says about their parents is:

          Stan’s 84-year-old parents, Don and Shirley Ledgerwood, have watched oil companies drill multiple wells on their farm, where the family had grown crops and run cattle. The family received small royalty payments from the oil production.

          Which still does not say that their parents let them. They received the royalty payments I’m assuming because the law about mineral rights requires the drillers to pay the land owners.

          Nowhere in this article does it say they ever gave them permission. From what I understand their parents did not sell the mineral rights.

          Can you please cite where it says or implies otherwise?

  • krashmo@lemmy.world
    24·
    6 months ago

    Oklahoma is a shitty state full of shitty people. Individually they can be kind and considerate but once you get more than 5 together at a time the tone shifts to narrow minded bigotry without any care for other people. Most Republicans are like that but it is especially bad in Oklahoma. You reap what you sow, as they say.

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
      51·
      6 months ago

      Great insight. We do live in a Just World, where only bad things happen to bad people who deserve it. Additionally everyone living in the arbitrary boundary that the US recognizes as Oklahoma is a homogenous group who are dumber then you, and less empathetic then you.
      Actually given your dismissive tone, you probably have less empathy then a resident of Oklahoma, and given the overall ignorance in your post I’m not sure you about your relative intelligence either.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        21·
        6 months ago

        You’re welcome to disagree with me if you like but I lived there for 20 years and that was my experience. Their empathy doesn’t extend to anyone outside their immediate social circle and that’s a shitty way to live. If noticing that makes me a shitty person then I guess their ways rubbed off on me.