OERB can't do anything. The are for restoration of old sites that are abandoned and the owner doesn't exist.
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Not on Sovereign nation property.
The lessee is an Attorney from Admore. I dealt with his dad years ago when our well got contaminated from a spill at their location. I couldn't afford the litigation if I lost. With this being a sovereign nation, I'm not willing to risk my retirement made over the years to litigate this in federal courts. I'm between a hard spot and a rock. Welcome to the Rez.@dennishoddy The EPA and DEQ are looking at this as small potatoes in terms of spills. Sucks, but that's the way they are seeing it. I think it's time to hire an oil & gas attorney. A real good and knowledgeable shyster if you can find one.
It really shouldn't matter whether the well(s) are on indian land or not. The tribes aren't operating the wells are they? They've leased to a production company who has most likely contracted to an operator. They are the ones to have an attorney go after. The land and mineral owners have no involvement in the matter. You may need to get it into federal court too.
I dunno, I'm not involved in production and have never worked Osage County primarily because it's a little bit different getting into indian leases through the BIA. We had a couple of guys in the past who only messed with that stuff. These are my thoughts. Those tanks and pump jacks that I see in the pics are small. Throw the litigation word at them! Those small old wells are almost always marginal from a money standpoint. They may well see the light and clean some stuff up and make you right instead of going to court.
We will keep sanitizing it until it cleans up and move on.
Definitely time to go public with this in my opinion.
Send letter after letter to the tribal chairman and council.
@dennishoddy I did some checking and this is unfortunate to say the least. From what I know, all the mineral rights for the entire county of Osage are owned by the BIA in trust for the Osage nation. All leasing goes through them. This link below is an environmental impact study and in it, it shows their responsibility and gives you an overview of all that. I haven't read this whole thing but I scanned parts and that's it in a nutshell. The BIA is the one to hold their lessees responsible.
If the operator hasn't complied with all their requirements I would think they'd be up in thier a$$ about it at some point. I have worked with the BIA enough to know that they move about as fast as water running uphill in most cases. You might keep politely hounding them because they might have something in the works as to making the lessee do cleanup, add containment capacity, etc. It could take a long time. Keep that in mind as hard as it may be. Keep following up and they'll likely let you know if the operator wasn't in compliance with anything and what they might be doing about it.
https://www.bia.gov/sites/bia.gov/files/assets/bia/eaokreg/osage/idc1-032081.pdf
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I didn’t see anything about the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in your attempts at remedy. I know Osage County is its own thing, but I know they were involved when the gas problem popped up at Pawhuska Schools awhile back. I was contacted to help resolve the issue but was tied up out of state at the time. The OCC has jurisdiction over most other production sites.
ACOE has a Tribal Nations Program https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Tribal-Nations/
OCC was called. They have no jurisdiction in Osage county I was told by them.
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