Denbury onshore posted road to 100 sections blm

[teamhoyt]

This is going on awful close to home. There are also 2 Fwp stocked ponds and 100 sections of blm in Dawson, wibaux and Fallon counties.

If someone smarter than me could please find a link and post it here I would appreciate it.

I Have reached out to bha already so hopefully we can hit this head on and full throttle. Also if anyone has suggestion for things I can do I'm all ears.

 

[MTGomer]

It's just a liability push so when someone goes where they shouldn't likenin a treater building and inhales H2S and dies, Denbury can say ' should have read the sign'.
As you probably know, There are hundreds if not thousands of roads in the Bakken/3forks just like this.
Don't call them. Don't ask. Just go. It's not their property and they know it. Nobody will do anything.
The person at Denbury corporate that told the guy no couldn't find glendive on a map.
I've parked right on well pads and even warmed myself with the flare (not recommended).
Being from Glendive, have you been going all these years without driving on 'posted' oilfield roads?

 

[teamhoyt]

Mtgomer

No I have driven on plenty of posted roads, I work in the oilfield. However these are not typical lease roads that are posted. They are through, named roads that have presumably been county. They are listed as county roads on every map I have seen.

According to denbury they have asked for the counties to take ownership but the counties have declined due to funding.

At the very least there should be a prescriptive easement.

Also In the newspaper the fellow called for permission to use the road to access the Fwp stocked pond and was denied access. Maybe this was a miscommunication but better to get ahead of this than find out later there's more to the story.

 

[Schaaf]

I've been working with Kat on this a little bit.

First off, the author of the article is wrong in saying it is not a fuel tax route. The road receives fuel tax funds in all 4 counties the road passes through. Brian Andersen confirmed as much with me over email and the fuel tax map supports that. I don't know if he misinterpreted Mr. Andersen or what, but the counties are receiving money to maintain their portion of the road.

Denbury doesn't claim ownership in Dawson or Fallon County, just Prairie and Wibaux Counties. Seems odd to me why that would be.

Does 65+ years of uninterrupted use and state fuel tax allocations constitute a prescriptive easement? If Denbury really has no intentions of keeping the public out but is concerned about liability? Would an easement take away any liability they might have by letting the public pass through?

My first mule deer, turkey, and rainbow trout all came from the public land this road gives access to.

 

[teamhoyt]

Schaff, I did try and send you a pm earlier.

 

[MTGomer]

Does 65+ years of uninterrupted use and state fuel tax allocations constitute a prescriptive easement?

Yes it sure does/should. It might even go beyond that since public monies have been used to maintain it.

 

[Nameless Range]

I don't know much about easement law in Montana, but I do know if no one fights for access on a road, whether public monies were used for maintenance and historical access is present or not, access can be lost. I saw the public lose access on a road a few years back that some public monies had maintained, and that the public had been using for a century, simply because our County Commissioners decided that the county didn't have the money to go up against those who did in court. Hopefully this can be ironed out.

 

[katqanna]

I finally got my call back from Wibaux County.

This road was put in by the Shell Oil Company in the 70's.

In Dawson County (Rd. 100) and Fallon County (Anticline Rd) (the two ends) it is now a county road because when the oil company offered it to the counties they accepted, with some culvert improvements made. But Prairie and Wibaux did not.

Shell Oil sold to Denbury Onshore LLC. Denbury has offered the road to Prairie and Wibaux counties, but Prairie and Wibaux declined because there are millions of dollars of repairs on culverts that need to be done. Repair work the Shell did before when Dawson and Fallon got their roads. Prairie and Wibaux don't want to get saddled with millions of repair costs.

All four counties receive fuel tax. Fuel tax is for maintenance as well as "open to public travel" - contrary to the guy at the MDT Allocations, Brian Andersen. I am currently in a wee skirmish with MDT after looking into the fuel tax county maps on the 7th.

In February, MDT removed the county and city pdf fuel tax maps from their website. In May they removed the online GIS viewer for the fuel tax routes. I prefer the pdf maps, have used them for years for access and maintenance. When I spoke with Andersen to see where they moved them, he said they were not online. I asked if they would restore them, he said no. I requested the 3 Dawson, Prairie and Wibaux maps, He said I need to send a formal written request, which I did. He then kept refusing to send my requested maps, but did confirm the fuel tax.

So I went another route to their website and downloaded the previous SFY 2016 and 2017 maps (a few of those maps had corruption on their upload, not having the titles and legends on them). Then I made a formal public information request with the MDT Director Mike Tooley for the corrupted 2016 and 2017 maps and the SFY 2018 maps for all 56 counties. After I received acknowledgement from Tooley, I then replied to Brian Anderson, including Governor Bullock, Director Tooley, and Ryan Weiss (the new access guy) that contrary to Andersen's statement, fuel tax is for maintenance and for public access "open to public travel" per their own website and their 2017 MDT Process Manual I read through, citing the page numbers for their quotes; that he had thrice refused my official request for the 3 pdf maps. I explained that I was going to take all those pdfs and upload them to my website so the public would still have access to them since MDT refused.

My Public Information Request was then forwarded from the Director to MDT's Chief Legal, David Ohler, who is giving me the same run around, trying to force me to file yet another request through their online form, saying it is the only way to submit one, contrary to the law and their own pdf on the matter. I am on day 3, email 4 with MDT Chief Legal. And I have consulted with Attorney Mike Meloy on the matter, who has offered to get involved.

This road can be accepted by a County Commissioner Resolution MCA 7-14-2101 - 2) (a) Following a public hearing, a board of county commissioners may accept by resolution a road that has not previously been considered a county road but that has been laid out, constructed, and maintained with state department of transportation or county funds.

A meeting could be set up with the commissions and the proposals made, but their objection is going to be the millions in repairs.

I put a call into Denbury Montana about the road to see their side of things, perhaps get some repairs done before a transfer. Doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[katqanna]

I just got a return call from Denbury, Clayton Breckenridge. He did not know that he was being interviewed by a journalist for a paper. He said there is some misinformation in the Glendive article.

He explained the situation: Clayton confirmed that they have offered the road to the 2 counties. He said the estimate they received on the road repair was less than a million for the approx. 15 miles of road, he is sending a copy of that. He said there are about 5 other oil companies who use that road that have not previously help pay for maintenance, so Denbury just reached out to them about this, in the meantime, they wanted the companies to sign a release so that Denbury would not be held responsible. Denbury contacted all the landowners about signing a release. They are not wanting to cut off access, simply get the other companies using the road to pitch in and help with road repairs, but they would also like the Prairie and Dawson County to assume the road.

While we were on the phone he received the final version of the release from legal, which he is forwarding to me, so you guys can fill one out in the meantime and have access while the negotiations with the other road companies is done, repairs, then hopefully the county adoption. He said Fallon just did it on their own in 2011, notifying Denbury that the road was now theirs.

This is important to take advantage of right now. Before Breckenridge called, I had just read an oil article published in May, speaking to the slumping oil prices and decreased drilling in areas. This particular area is not one of those, so we should push for this road to be adopted by the counties before any major change occurs with oil companies just cutting losses.

"Two regions that produced the most crude in the state during 2016 were Richland and Fallon counties, both of which sit within the Williston Basin. With year-long respective totals of 11.67 mmbo and 3.57 mmbo extracted, Richland County’s oil came mainly from the horizontal BSR, while Fallon County’s output was primarily from vertical Silurian and Ordovician production along the Cedar Creek Anticline (also referred to as the Glendive-Baker Anticline). In comparison, for 2015 Richland County yielded 15.32 mmbo while Fallon County booked oil production of 3.86 mmbo."


Some days it is so nice to hear a friendly Texas accent again.

 

[teamhoyt]

Thanks for everything you do Kat! This chunk of land is important to residents in these counties. It's better to be in front than behind these issues for sure.

 

[Schism]

Thanks Kat and Hoyt!

 

[katqanna]

You are welcome, and thanks also goes to Schaaf for the original call a week ago with the heads up and questions.