Andrew Brown of the Charleston Gazette wrote an excellent article on forced pooling and partition suits in West Virginia.  It points out the problems and advantages of both, doesn’t offer a solution, and does a pretty good job of pointing out that the current system doesn’t really work.  It’s a little long compared to what many of us read online, but it’s well worth the time.

He didn’t get into solutions.  One possible solution to some of this is a dormant minerals act similar to what Ohio already has.  Ohio is litigating the living daylights out of their dormant minerals act right now, with at least one decision expected in the next few months, so we could look to Ohio for sample language.  It wouldn’t solve all the problems, and we should dive into the subject at length sometime, but it’s certainly something that should be looked into closely by West Virginia.