Sec. 91.179. APPROPRIATION OF STORAGE FACILITIES; LIMITATIONS

After an order of the commission is issued approving a storage facility, a storer may condemn without further attack as to its right to condemn, any subsurface sand, stratum, or formation for the underground storage of natural gas, condemning all mineral and royalty rights as are reasonably necessary for the operation of the storage facility, subject to the limitations of this subchapter, and the storer may condemn any other interests in property that may be required, including interests in the surface estate in the sand, stratum, or formation reasonably necessary to the operation of the storage facility, provided that:

(1) no part of a reservoir is subject to condemnation unless the storer has acquired by option, lease, conveyance, or other negotiated means at least 66-2/3 percent of the ownership of minerals, including working interests, and 66-2/3 percent of the ownership of the royalty interests, computed in relation to the surface area overlying the part of the reservoir which as found by the commission to be expected to be penetrated by displaced or injected gas;

(2) no dwelling, barn, store, or other building is subject to condemnation; and

(3) the right of condemnation is without prejudice to the rights of the owners or holders of other rights or interests of land to drill through the storage facility under such terms and conditions as the commission may prescribe for the purpose of protecting the storage facility against pollution or escape of natural gas and is without prejudice to the rights of the owners or holders of other rights or interests of the land to all other uses so long as those uses do not interfere with the operation of the storage facility.

Added by Acts 1979, 66th Leg., p. 1996, ch. 785, Sec. 3, eff. June 13, 1979.