Use mineral rights to benefit city

Use mineral rights to benefit city

Who owns the mineral rights beneath our cities and incorporated communities? Leases previously negotiated for shallow wells years ago should be renegotiated for the much deeper gas and oil in the shale. Why can’t Youngstown and the surrounding communities like Austintown, Boardman, Hubbard, and the rest, lay claim to the deeper gas and oil shale rights?

Youngstown for instance, could combine every lot within the city limits and negotiate with Chesapeake for tens of millions of dollars in oil and gas leases, then pass along perhaps 75 percent of the money to all the landowners through tax relief or an actual monthly payment.

The city could find plenty of land along the river to have the deep wells drilled, and charge for the water from the Mahoning River needed for that drilling.

Since land no longer needs to be adjacent to the well site, every citizen within a community could benefit, as well as the cities receiving those vast amounts of revenue in time of need.

Larry J. Schuler, Canfield