My great grandfather has a land patent for 160 acres of land which is now on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge in Adams County, Colorado. We just received a document that he still owns 80 acres of mineral rights, the rest of the Refuge is owned by the US Fish and Army. We were told to ‘shore up’ those rights so they could not be taken away, and if anyone is familiar with the Arsenal, it was and still is contaminated from the Army in WW2 and pesticides by Shell Oil Co. A lawyer wants to charge us 5 thousand to do that, is there a way we can do that ourselves? Also with all the contamination, we would not be able to develop them and believe we should be entitled to compensation from the entities who contaminated the land. We are at a dead end, does anyone have any suggestions?
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge gave many of its acres to O&G production. It is hard to see how a National Wildlife Refuge would be contaminated for the wildlife’s sake. This may be an expired cover story. The best way to shore up your Mineral Rights - instead of suing a sovereignty - would be to get them leased. Good luck!
This is not the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge in Colorado, was used in WW2 to make mustard gas and other things and then pesticides were made on it until the 80’s, we would love to get them leased, but you can’t. Thanks.
You may be in a pickle. Regardless and/or irrespective of a WW2 mustard gas or even pesticides, St Louis, MO, in cooperation with the State’s Geology Natural Resources uses Mallinkrodt Chemical Weldon Spring, MO - a wartime large uranium isolating plant - for O&G in the State as well as an outside sculpture art museum. Many times these precious contaminations end up like that or even Chernobyl where Ukrainian farmers have returned to their life.
Get a title opinion from an abstractor. You don’t need a lawyer I bet. Get the title opinion and swear out an affidavit of ownership and/or heirship and file in the County Clerk’s office. Should be much less than $5K.