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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Southwest Virginians sue natural-gas firms, alleging theft in scandal Bristol paper exposed

A group of Southwest Virginia landowners has filed twin class-action lawsuits against two leading energy corporations, accusing them of stealing the landowners' natural gas. "The federal lawsuits charge that the Pittsburgh-area companies Consol Energy and EQT Corp. have illegally exploited provisions of the 1990 Virginia Gas and Oil Act," reports Daniel Gilbert of the Bristol Herald Courier, which won this year's Pulitzer Prize medal for public service for revealing the scandal. "The plaintiffs argue that they should be paid for all of the coalbed methane gas the companies have produced from beneath their lands, past and future."

"The two lawsuits will be followed by a series of class-action complaints seeking damages against energy companies for underpaying royalties owed to landowners in all of the gas-producing counties of Southwest Virginia," Gilbert writes. Don Barrett, one of the groups' lawyers, told Gilbert, "What we are talking about here is breathtaking thievery. The system’s broken in Virginia, unlike any other place in the country. And that’s what they make courthouses for." A Consol spokeswoman told Gilbert it was against company policy to comment on pending litigation. (Read more)

You can see our previous items on the Herald Courier's Pulitzer Prize win here and on the original stories here.

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