I agree with your comments, but consider this. In Alberta the title to the minerals is separate from the title to the surface however that does not give energy companies the right to construct pipelines. The Pipeline Act gives these for profit energy companies the right to take our privately owned land by force for the construction of pipelines. Supposedly it is in the public good for this to happen.
Now what you say is true regarding annual payments and asking for money upfront for negotiations. And perhaps the Surface Rights Board is throwing a few more baubles our way. But the point is we are still only getting pennies on the dollar for what these rights of way are worth. This is in effect industrial land once it is a right of way yet the landowner only gets paid damages. The Surface Rights Board is effectively giving a gift to the energy companies and it nonsense to suggest that gift is somehow in the public good when you consider the really outrageous profits the energy companies make at least partly on the backs of the men and women who own the land.
I recently had a pipeline cross a quarter section of mine. And while I did a fairly good job of negotiating and effectively raised the price of pipeline right of ways in this area (the company had to go back and pay all the neighbours more money although the neighbours did not help me negotiate) the reality is that I did not get enough money from this pipeline to fill my fuel tanks one time (less than 2000 gallons). The money I received from the pipeline was basically a joke and I had to work very hard to get it.
Yes the men and women farming our land resources are desperate for the money but that does not justify the government through the Surface Rights Board artificially keeping compensation at ridiculously low levels in order to subsidize the energy companies at our direct expense. Instead of $2000 an acre these pipeline right of ways should be worth $20,000 an acre just like other industrial land. And the companies can afford to pay it.
Now what you say is true regarding annual payments and asking for money upfront for negotiations. And perhaps the Surface Rights Board is throwing a few more baubles our way. But the point is we are still only getting pennies on the dollar for what these rights of way are worth. This is in effect industrial land once it is a right of way yet the landowner only gets paid damages. The Surface Rights Board is effectively giving a gift to the energy companies and it nonsense to suggest that gift is somehow in the public good when you consider the really outrageous profits the energy companies make at least partly on the backs of the men and women who own the land.
I recently had a pipeline cross a quarter section of mine. And while I did a fairly good job of negotiating and effectively raised the price of pipeline right of ways in this area (the company had to go back and pay all the neighbours more money although the neighbours did not help me negotiate) the reality is that I did not get enough money from this pipeline to fill my fuel tanks one time (less than 2000 gallons). The money I received from the pipeline was basically a joke and I had to work very hard to get it.
Yes the men and women farming our land resources are desperate for the money but that does not justify the government through the Surface Rights Board artificially keeping compensation at ridiculously low levels in order to subsidize the energy companies at our direct expense. Instead of $2000 an acre these pipeline right of ways should be worth $20,000 an acre just like other industrial land. And the companies can afford to pay it.
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