share this story of a Jersey's last breath (GRAPHIC photos)

Sorry your having to deal with this, have you asked for help? neighbors? townfolk? News station? You need to tell your story and make some people sit up and take notice. I`m not telling you what to do, but I could make that gas companies life a living hell without leaving my front porch. To many big companies like this think they run the show, well they don`t. Time to take the country back from these big boys. > Thanks Marc

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I suggest that you find an attorney ,if you feel they haven't abided by the lease agreement.

Bob

Can't you find a lawyer to take it on for a percentage of the winnings? I just feel there's something we are all not getting or something. How can they legally do all that and not have to pay for something??! The trees are worth alot just by themselves!

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Thanks all, for the support. I know it's quite amazing, but this is what happens when you say "NO" to a corporation, as in - "NO", I won't sign your release of all claims document in exchange for $7k. Everyone else in the project (with the same form lease) got paid, some a lot more than $7k, others only $7k, but they wouldn't budge with us. I wish I knew how to post a pdf, I could show you all one agreement they made with one landowner in particular that I managed to get a copy of from FERC through an FOIA request. Columbia was livid that we got it.

DH won't even move her for fear Columbia would come and take photos of tire tracks and say we "planted" her there, like one poster commented. He only has a small front-end loader. I really struggle with this. We took photos again yesterday for the record and it was very hard.

Anyway, that's why I posted here, hoping the story would be spread far and wide, so people will know to what lengths a corrupt mega corporation will go to run over a landowner and endanger innocent livestock. We've contacted the farm bureau, humane society and SPCA and will file a formal complaint with FERC tomorrow, along with a copy to Senator Brown. They must be stopped from endangering anyone or their livestock for their own profit.

Thanks again,
mamagoose

I agree with springvalley. You need to go bigger. Contact the news station in the nearest big city. Do you twitter or you tube? You should be on there. Your situation should be one of those news blip squares on the yahoo main page.

Contact one of the conservative talk show people, Alex Jones, Rush (yuk) whatever.

You are on the right track with the senator and the farm bureau, but this needs to be in the eye of the sheeple. Simple, common folk that love to gossip and get mad when someone gets stomped on.

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The logs were cut long ago and the ends even have moss on them, you speak of the owners of the cow and calf in the third person in your original post and then claim them as your own, and finally, some of your posts come across as rambling while others come across as a legal brief.

Something doesnt add up but if you are claiming you have spent 300K over this and spent 6 months in jail and your still not successful in any of your endeavors I have to ask you...at what point will you stop beating your head against the wall?

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I think every one is assuming the logs where cut long ago.

Why could these not of been dead standing trees?

Those suitable for lumber being trucked out and the junk left to lay?

Most likely some Foreman pocketing the money and cutting a crooked lumber broker a deal.

mamagoose, you can print the pdf file and scan it....save it as a jpg and then link it or photobucket it here.

As for the cow's remains, get an independent party out or the sheriff or a family friend to watch you as you remove the cow. I wouldn't leave it there - the animal cruelty people might help....

Get mad and get loud. Tell the tv stations, call Cleveland, Pittsburgh. Call someone that's going to get this in the media....

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There won't be any sheriff involved. My point about his deputies being on our property, armed, in uniform, with cruisers in the middle of our pasture field (I have photos of that, too) and without any court order. We have a civil rights lawsuit pending against him and his deputies for his deputy's assault on us September 9, 2009.

Yes, I know we need to go bigger.

When I wrote the OP, I was doing it as I would do from a third party, then the questions came and it made more sense to me to clarify the owner of the dead Jersey cow since I was answering the questions.

We have written numerous legal briefs, pro se. After going $300k in debt over defending your property and your civil rights against AEP, Columbia Gas and the State of Ohio, you learn how little the attorneys are actually accomplishing. We've actually accomplished more on our own. We have retained a Chicago attorney for the civil rights lawsuit against AEP/sheriff/ deputies and that takes everything we have at the end of the month.

I realize there are always skeptics about anything and everything, that's part of life. That's why I spent 6 months in jail, because 12 people believed a lying deputy over me and my husband and the sheriff's office own photographs that proved that what he said isn't true. I appreciate the negative feedback, because it helps me to understand the mentality of others. I've witnessed abuse and corruption I would have never imagined while in jail. One girl was mentally incompetent and was threatened constantly, pepper-sprayed, dragged across the floor naked by male deputies, refused a shower for 3 weeks, had her water turned off and she was drinking from the toilet. Her crime was petty theft. I managed to get a complaint to the U.S. District Attorney through my husband and a doctor from the state mental health hospital was there the next morning to arrange her "escape" from that horrible, filthy place. The deputies figured out pretty quick that I was the informant. I was not treated well at all and I was in "protective custody", which is 23-hour isolation the entire 100 days in that jail because my brother is a city police officer in the county. I was also in that jail illegally, but that's a whole other story.

Columbia picked up where AEP left off, both hiring the sheriff's deputies to oppress us while they destroyed our property and that all happened in the fall of 2009.

Well, considering the timber cutter called and left a message on our answering machine that he was interested in buying the timber he had already removed from our property, we're guessing extortion is involved. Those were not dead standing trees. The prime timber was removed and hauled off the property first while my husband was sleeping on midnight shift. I was with a relative out of state at the time. Our adult son witnessed the truckloads of timber that disappeared. He has degrees in forestry management and environmental science, so he knows what he saw. The prosecutor refused to press charges against them. Why? Because she was too busy prosecuting me and my husband for a lying deputy.

I haven't been able to scan documents since we replaced our computer and there are software compatible issues. I may try and photograph a couple docs and jpg them or find a free program where I can convert pdfs, since we should have pdfs of them from the court filings. I've got to get working on our FERC complaint. It's a sunny day here, so I've got laundry to wash and I'm going to try and enjoy new baby chicks hatching out.

mamagoose

WHAT A SNAFU....and keep fighting.

You might be able to send the pdf file to someone with a printer/scanner/all in one thingey and have them do it for you. Our library will do it for us, if our printer screws up.....

Good luck with everything you're battling and I would love to hear how things go for you. Maybe I'm naive and just have a hard time wrapping my head around how things really are. I grew up in a little ----y town - everyone was related. I now live in another little ----y town - and it just isn't that way here - or else it's well hidden....

Edited to add: the words blanked out were D-I-N-K??? Why didn't you like that??

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If you can't call the sheriff for help can't you call in the State Police? Maybe they can assist you in some way.

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Ya really and good luck getting something out of a 3 year law suit. The longer the sits in litigation the far less chance there is of ever getting a good out come from it.

I'm going to say this is all a case of sour grapes.

Grandma signed the lease back in 1971, and the property has now ended up with the Grandson. Grandson now fills that the gas company screwed Grandma (and the family).

But something still doesn't add up. The plane photo was taken back in October of 2009 - 2 years ago. You saw the pile of logs there, you saw the barbed wire there, and yet you let your animals roam in that area. I'm sorry, how is the gas company responsible for your cow's death?

That's kind of like the State buying a right of way across your land, building a highway, and then after your cow gets hit by a semi truck, you sue the state because your cow got killed. Take some responsiblilty here!

And no, trees are not "crops". You being farmers should know that.

And you can't tell me, that the gas company "sneaked" onto your land with bulldozers and cut down trees, and hauled them off without you knowing about it. You and your neighbors didn't hear big equipment, chainsaws, or see lumber trucks coming and going?

Nope, you have left out ALOT of information. Let me guess, this is a Marcellus gas well? You and your husband aren't by chance "against" Marcellus wells being drilled are you?

And the gas company wouldn't have had to hire sheriff's and such to be around unless they had good cause.

Nope, I'm not buying this at all.

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Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania

"Everything happens for a reason."

I agree the only way tress would become a "crop" is If this was a Certified "Tree Farm".
Hence it is not just land that has trees on it, or it this case had trees. No case there at all. And yes no oil company is "just going to come in" and cut trees without notifying, they just are not going to operate their business like that.

If you look at the cut ends of the trees they have obviously been laying on the ground for a long time as there is even moss growing on them. Even if they were dead standing trees the cut ends would not look like that.

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Wow, more info needed for some here.

Well, the $40,000.00 check we received for our timber from one remote corner of the property two years before Columbia stole several truckloads from us must have been just a joke against that old timber buyer. The USDA does not agree that timber is not a crop.

This is not a marcellus or any type of production well. It is a natural gas storage well. This company's rights to drill for production were stripped from them in exchange for their federal regulatory status.

I am the granddaughter.

Yes, Columbia Gas Transmission came onto the property with armed deputies and cruisers (for $100,000.00+) 24/7 for 68 days without any other "cause" than cash. $30/hour was quite attractive and empowering for "special duty". However, we had told Columbia that coming onto the property without a damages compensation agreement would be in violation of 15 USC §717 f(h), which states in pertinent part: “When any holder of a certificate of public convenience and necessity [ ] is unable to agree with the owner of property to the compensation to be paid for, the necessary right-of-way to construct, operate, and maintain a pipe line or pipe lines for the transportation of natural gas, and the necessary land or other property, in addition to right-of-way, for the location of [ ] other equipment necessary to the proper operation of such pipe line or pipe lines”












These photos show two different days (October and November) when Columbia left the temporary electric fence they cut through and moved and gated across their new access road in our pasture field, laying on the ground. DH was in the process of building the new stretch of high-tensile along the road. He had removed the old wood fence and put a temporary electric wire up to keep the cattle in. (The goats mentioned before were not in the 50 acres until the fence was complete, except for being in a small barn for breeding and quarantined from the CL outbreak in the small pasture and barn near our house on the other side of the property.)

Columbia often tells landowners around here they can do whatever they want on someone's property and even told my FIL they "own" his property. We reviewed Columbia leases on many properties in the county, the pipeline right of way agreement on ours (which they want to ignore), the laws regarding surface estate rights and federal law, as well as the regulations they are required to submit to under the federal agency FERC.

The 1971 lease says Columbia can come onto our property and drill for oil and gas, and storage of gas, etc. and the only damage clause is for "growing crops". There is no waiver provision for any other damages. Under Ohio law, if there is no waiver, the mineral estate must pay damages to the surface estate for damages to the surface, as well as change in use of the surface, and diminutive value to the remainder of the property. In the 21 years we've lived here, we've been paid for damages to the surface on the cleared pipeline rights of way where there were already pipelines, during maintenance of very small areas. They sent a land agent out ahead of time who wrote a check and there were no issues.

After hundreds of 1971 leases were executed, Columbia decided they wanted the power of eminent domain, so they made a "deal" with the predecessor of FERC, which included that Columbia relinquished its rights to drill any production oil or gas wells, and Columbia cannot exercise its rights to construct any new facilities under the lease on any of the properties, including ours, without a certificate of public convenience and necessity. They could not even leave their designated "footprint" to get a water sample without our express permission. The best thing about the FERC regulation is that it is heavy on protecting endangered species of wildlife.

If landowners found out of the extent of the regulations Columbia is obligated under, there would be a lot more complaints filed with FERC. If others find out about 15 USC §717 f(h), Columbia would have to stop offering pittances to landowners for damages in exchange for their golden "release of all claims" paper that we threw back in their collective face. We are a threat to them, because we have called them out on their practices.

Yes, they came onto our property in October with the deputies for hire because we were a "threat", but not in the physical sense. They hoped we would cause a scene, no doubt. We took photographs, asked the deputies why they were on our property and told them to leave our property. In response, the deputies filed numerous false criminal charges against us. None stuck, but they were expensive to defend.

We had thoughts like Mr. Smith once, having no reason to believe ill will from any corporation, let alone the sheriff or his deputies. As it turns out, real life isn't like what we were taught when we were children.

And to the other query about the barbed wire fence and the logs. That entire area became Columbia's "footprint", not ours. They have complete control over their footprint for 3 years after completion. ANYTHING we would physically do except for walking on that footprint would be considered INTERFERENCE. That's why they were obligated to put up an appropriate fence to keep our livestock away from it. FERC would not enforce its own regulations. Any attempt to move the logs, (personal property that belonged to us), from Columbia's footprint would have been interference. Perhaps one would have to understand what it would take to undertake such an endeavor to understand the damage it would cause, but then they could get their restraining order against us for interfering and costing Columbia money to restore the soil from moving the logs. They have been in a pounce stance for a very long time. It's common for Columbia to go after a restraining order against landowners around here. My mother was dying of cancer when they harassed her with seismic testing, left rooted spikes all over the woods and never paid damages. The adjacent landowner was also hit with one in the 90's when he protested a pig launcher on a 26” line that is bigger than our house.

Columbia did not "sneak" onto the property and steal the timber. They stole it in broad daylight while I was out of state and my husband was sleeping on midnights in the house on the other side of the property. Like I said before, once he called our attorney, Columbia stopped stealing the timber, but continued to chip and haul away the treetops and stumps with soil. The only “wood products” left was the pile where the Jersey cow was trapped to her death. The neighbors are a mile away in either direction and some are witnesses to Columbia's loaded logging trucks going down the township road with our timber. Our neighbors are not nosey and with a well just being completed on the property adjoining ours, nothing would have appeared odd. There were several drilled in the township that summer.

Your comments are appreciated. I know that getting this story out will help someone else and perhaps prevent a tragedy. Living around what amounts to a bomb, is what people in our area have done for three or four generations, but we still have rights to be protected from avoidable harm inherent of it all.

My husband has filed a complaint with FERC at Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

It can be viewed by clicking: e-library - advanced search - then entering CP08-431 in the first box

I read over this fast as I am at my office desk but I can speak from experience as far as the logs are concerned. We have a BP gas line dissecting our property. It cuts through approximately 9 acres of pastureland. Every two years they (pipeline maintenance) comes through and mows the strip of land they have the easement on. They send us a letter announcing the time frame and ask that they have access to gates, etc in order to do maintenance. No problem. They came through last year and were even nice enough to mow a steep incline for us that was off the easement.

As for the logs, BP will cut any brush or trees that are encroaching upon their easement. They do not remove the logs or the slash from bushes. They do stack them or push them off their easement. But it is up to us to remove, move or utilize them if we see fit.

We aren't exactly thrilled about the pipeline being there but so far they have been no bother. Just the weekly low flying plane that checks for leaks or problems. It's tragic that this lovely cow has met such a painful end. I would advise getting those logs out of the pasture asap. Sorry you are having such a bad experience with your pipeline.

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I have logged patches with cows in them and never had cows get in among the logs yet. Guess I have just been lucky all these years, that they have never had any interest other than when the equipment is moving they are curious sorts.