Provides for the lapse of oil and gas interests located within Allegany state park if unused for 20 years prior to effective date of act

2 Co-sponsors

• José M. Serrano
• Antoine M. Thompson

BILL NUMBER:S7170B

Title of bill

An act to amend the real property law, in relation to lapse of oil and gas interests in Allegany state park

Summary of provisions

Amends the Real Propel1y Law by adding a new section 329-a to provide that oil and gas interests in Allegany State Park unused for 20 years will lapse and revert to New York State unless a statement of claim is filed in accordance with subdivision five of this section. Failure to file a statement of claim will not result in lapse of such oil and gas interest if a diligent effort to preserve such interest were made with the period provided in subdivision five; or there was a failure to provide a statement of claim through inadvertence, or if no such notice was published within sixty days after receiving actual knowledge that such oil and gas interest had been extinguished.

Justification

Allegany State Park is home to 67,000 acres of outdoor recreational opportunities for residents in Rochester and Buffalo and the surrounding regions of the Niagara Frontier, Genesee Valley and Finger Lakes. The park is an invaluable asset to the state's tourism economy. It offers a hundred year-old mixed hardwood forest, a 350-year-old old-growth-forest and one of the most botanically diverse ecosystems in New York State. Its incomparable beauty and unique ecological resources deserve a level of protection at least equal too if not greater than that afforded other New York State Parks. Oil and gas exploration in the Park would create a tangle of roads and well heads that would ruin its forests and render this amazing place unfit as a Park.

This bill will allow greater protection for Allegany State Park with regard to the lapse of oil and gas interest on land underneath the park. This bill allows ownership of mineral rights underlying Allegany State Park to revert to the state of NY if those rights are unused over a twenty year span. Ownership of these rights are often extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine.

The bill's intent is to inventory the dormant oil and gas rights in Allegany State Park and to have those rights revert back to the state if unused. The bill will limit the disruption of Allegany's recreational and ecological systems which are potentially threatened by the exploitation of those privately held rights.

Legislative history

1998 A289-A Referred to Judiciary 2000 A2436 Reported and Referred to Ways and Means 2001-02 A2212 Reported and Referred to Ways and Means 2003-04 A625 Referred to Judiciary 2005-06 A2569 - Referred to Judiciary, Passed Assembly, Delivered to Senate.

Fiscal implications

New York State will incur a nominal expense in complying with this bill.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.