For more than 200 years, the Thibodeaux family has hunted and fished the area where this pump hums.
Some of the earliest land grants and patents were given to ancestors for service in the American Revolution, said Trahan, who began spending much of his free time here a half-century ago, after he was brought here by his bride, Elsie Faye Thibodeaux, who also is Perrin’s third cousin.
By the 1890s, Elsie’s grandfather on her father’s side, Emile Thibodeaux, held a significant amount of land in this part of Vermilion Bay, including the land under the oil well, which was purchased in 1899. Today, 74 of Emile Thibodeaux’s heirs hold the title to 647 acres and pay property taxes on it, like their ancestors did before them.
But 200 years of property taxes mean nothing to the state of Louisiana. Not when the water rises by a few feet, and especially not when oil money is on the line.
A month before this well began to produce oil – and royalties for its owners – the Thibodeaux family was notified that 40 acres of their land was covered by water deep enough to be described as “navigable water,” which is determined in Louisiana by the highest water height in wintertime, averaged over a number of years. (It’s technically called the “mean high water mark.”)
That strips the family of its land. State law requires that all water – and the land below it – be placed into the “public trust,” as resources to be held and protected by the state of Louisiana, for the use by all of its citizens. (...)
Spokesman Patrick Courreges from the state Department of Natural Resources said that the measurement is in some ways intuitive. “Broadly speaking, when property converts from land you can walk on to water you have to wade in or swim in, that’s when it becomes water bottoms,” he said.
But the process was more exact than that. The Thibodeaux land officially changed hands thanks to oil company surveyors and researchers who are basically acting as an arm of the state, determining boundaries between private property and state-owned water bottom.
Greg Dupuis, spokesman for Louisiana’s Office of State Lands, emphasized that no one within his office pointed at a map and claimed this land for the state. “All we say is, ‘Show us the surveys. Show us where the mean high water mark is,’” Dupuis said. “The oil company did the survey. They’re following our guidelines,” he said. “They do the survey, they look at it and say this is who gets royalties. The oil company makes the decision.” (...)
Last year, from the disputed land, nearly $1 million of the royalties from Thibodeaux No. 1 were diverted to Louisiana state coffers. That portion alone makes the well a top producer for the state of Louisiana, which received $646 million from 1,888 active mineral leases – an average of $324,000 a well – on state-owned land and water bottoms in 2012. Nearly two-thirds of those leases were along the Gulf Coast.
Here’s how the oil-well process works: Before oil companies search for oil, they sign leases with landowners like the Thibodeauxs, who – for a per-acre lease fee followed by a percentage of oil royalties – give oil companies permission to access and drill on their land. Then, before a well is tapped, oil companies take detailed surveys to the DNR, which groups pieces of property together to create a “drilling unit” and notifies affected property owners, based upon geologic assessments of each well and the land it will drain. In the case of Thibodeaux No. 1, family members were notified that they were part of the drilling unit. DNR scientists and oil company engineers then determined that 221 acres from the Thibodeaux estate would be drained of oil by Thibodeaux Well No. 1.
To determine drilling units, the DNR holds drilling-unit hearings every Tuesday except holidays, Courreges said. “An owner can present evidence based on geology arguing that the unit should be a different size,” he said.
It’s unclear what happens next, at the royalty stage, because spokespeople from the Office of State Lands and DNR were not able to describe the process or identify anyone in their offices who decides when property should shift from state land to private land. Barry at Petroquest also did not respond to inquiries. Courreges said there is no administrative hearing or appeals process for royalties. All complaints must be brought judicially, he said.
Perrin, who has practiced law for 42 years, says there’s been sea change, literally. The state is increasingly declaring private lands submerged at the royalty stage, just as oil is located and royalties are imminent, he said.
by Katy Reckdahl, The Weather Channel | Read more:
Image: Kathleen Flynn
