The talk of the town when alarming court decisions come down turns inevitably toward precedent, and this one should be tripping emergency sensors the state over.
This week, the Ohio Supreme Court approved via a 6-1 vote strip-mining practices in a 651-acre section of the Brush Creek Wildlife Area, which is owned by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. The ruling is nestled in a longstanding contract dispute from 1944, which reserves mineral rights for the sellers of the land (Ronald Snyder and Steven Neeley), as well as “reasonable surface right privilege.” A common pleas court shot down the argument that that privilege may refer to strip-mining, and the Ohio Supreme Court overruled that.
The ODNR, according to spokesperson Bethany McCorkle, will be digging into all other land deeds to make sure vague references like the above mineral rights description don’t show up elsewhere.
Semi-relatedly, remember that Gov. John Kasich signed into law SB 310, which freezes Ohio’s renewable energy standards this year.
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2014.
So, according to the Ohio SC then, the state bought the land in 1944, but the previous owners get to destroy that land if they want and leave us with a bunch of mined out wasteland? Fantastic. No matter how you slice this, there are only one of two options: the person who signed this contract back then was an idiot, or the current Ohio SC are idiots.
OR the OSC is on the take…after all, they are an ELECTED body…and it’s much cheaper to buy a state Supreme Court and get your guys elected, seeing as NOBODY pays attention to whom they vote for as judges!
I like my business community as well as anyone, but coal is evil. Mining it by any means should be banned. And to bless strip-mining a state park?
It’s revolting.