The land owners do not always have a choice.

"Under split estate law, the surface owner must allow the mineral rights owner reasonable access. Protections for the surface owner vary; in some states an agreement is required that compensates them for the use of the land and reclaims the land after extraction is complete."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_in_the_United_State...

Even not taking that into account, aquifers and groundwater and other subterranean formations don’t stop at property lines. If I’m your neighbor and I inject some dirty water at high pressure into my ground there’s a nonzero chance it might pop out on your land

Never get tired of watching libertarian ideals collide with reality. Property rights do not make you an island, and what you do on your property with your property might well affect mine if I happen to be next to you.

Well, they had a choice to sell their mineral rights, or purchase land that had no mineral rights.

It is? People can just come on your land and force you to let them pump oil? Even if you own the mineral rights to your land?

I'll admit I'm not familiar with Texas but that doesn't seem right. Here in colorado, you're never forced to sell your mineral rights and let people on your land, but if your neighbors sell their mineral rights, and an oil field that is under your property is being drawn from, you will receive royalty checks, even if you'd rather the oil stay in the ground. But, no one can make you build an oil well on your land.

> you're never forced to sell your mineral rights and let people on your land

You are correct; if you own the surface and mineral rights you are not obligated to allow for any surface use. The thing you describe where someone drills on neighboring property and you are tagged along is called Force Pooling and is a much more complex topic.

You are not guaranteed to be force pooled -- if your neighbor has enough land to lease a full unit, it's conceivable that resources may still flow from your minerals towards the productive well without being compensated. It's usually in the landowners best interest to negotiate in good faith with a lessee than to be force pooled.

If you own only the surface rights to your land and someone else owns the subsurface minerals or a lease to the subsurface minerals you can absolutely be obligated to allow surface access for development and production under reasonable and usual terms for such.

I believe subdivision property in Texas doesn’t come with mineral rights.

I can only imagine how upset an HOA would get if drilling operations were performed without an approved architectural modification request.

If the only houses available to purchase are houses on land that already had mineral rights sold off, your only alternative choice is to be homeless.

You don't get to make choices in a vacuum.

Not sure about Texas, but this absolutely a thing elsewhere. The GOP is currently working on making this easier in my state: https://www.yahoo.com/news/recent-changes-ohio-easier-force-...

It’s pretty rare to find a ranch for sale with all the mineral rights intact.

I have some bad news for you... it's everywhere

https://www.fractracker.org/waste/

Neat Site. Because I was curious, and it's relevant to the sheer number of oil wells that have to be dealt with. Here's a picture of the Odessa / Midland area of West Texas.

FracTracker, West TX, Oil Wells (purple) https://i.imgur.com/PpPzDeM.png

From: https://ft.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?appi... (if you want to look at other areas)

With how many there are in West TX, I could almost believe the ground is collapsing. Drilled and vacuumed out so much, its like foam underneath. There's a known issue with sinkholes also.

https://blog.smu.edu/dedmancollege/2022/02/28/these-monstrou...

These wells may have been drilled before the current owners were alive.

> There’s nothing uncommon about a leaky old well. Many in West Texas were drilled during World War II and 80 years underground can do major damage to steel and concrete casing. Many of those wells were also flooded with water to squeeze out the last drops of oil.

But that doesn't mean that modern activities can't affect the stability of the groundwater in those wells. If the outflow is pretty salty it stands to reason that it's produced water that was dumped underground.

He's a fourth-generation rancher so the previous owners are his own family. His own family collected the payment for these wells and maybe made a mistake.

The people that made those decisions are gone