Energy companies use persistent and personalized pressure to get landowners to give permission for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), and even when landowners decline, companies use legalized compulsion to conduct fracking anyway, according to a new study led by researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York and UNLV.
“Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial issue, but a lot of the controversy has been focused on the big-picture consequences, for the climate and the economy,” said Benjamin Farrer, lead author and former PhD student at Binghamton University. “One of our hopes for this paper is that it will encourage policymakers to pay more attention to the individual experiences of the people who are closest to the issue.”
Because many fossil field reservoirs in the United States lie under private land, energy companies often have to negotiate with private landowners, offering compensation in exchange for access to the minerals under their land. Since a well is only economically viable if you can drain a large spatial area from a single well, drilling companies have to pool multiple mineral claims into a single working contract before drilling. But landowners often hold out from such deals for various reasons – they might be wary of the potential health risks, holding out for more money, or they simply might be unreachable.
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