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Candy Billionaire Fights Energy Industry Push
BILLINGS, MT (AP) - A reclusive billionaire whose family owns the Mars candy
empire is emerging as a formidable opponent to the energy industry’s plans
to expand development of some of the country’s most productive coal and
gas deposits.
Forrest E. Mars Jr., the former chief executive of Mars, Inc., owns a sprawling
ranch along Montana’s Tongue River - directly in the sights of companies
hoping to tap the area’s extensive coal and natural gas reserves.
Through his previously undisclosed ownership of the 82,000-acre Diamond Cross
Ranch, Mars is bringing his $14 billion fortune to bear on the side of ranchers
and conservationists trying to curb the companies’ ambitions.
“
The perception is that it’s the big guy (energy companies) versus the little
guy (ranchers). In this instance, that’s not the case,” said Bruce
Williams, vice president of Fidelity Exploration and Production, a defendant
in one of several lawsuits brought by Diamond Cross over natural gas drilling.
The Mars family has a long-standing reputation for secrecy, and Forrest Mars’ name
is not listed as a party in any of the lawsuits pitting Diamond Cross against
coal and natural gas developers. His ownership in the ranch was revealed in
a Dec. 28 court affidavit reviewed by the Associated Press.
Mars did not respond to requests for interviews made through his son-in-law,
Lonnie Wright, and through Diamond Cross attorney Loren O’Toole.
O’Toole said Mars’ opposition to energy development stemmed from
the vast amounts of water such projects can consume. In the arid West, water
is essential to keeping working cattle ranches such as Diamond Cross alive.
The ranch sits on the northern end of the Powder River Basin, an area with
some of the most productive coal and natural gas fields in the nation. Development
of those resources was concentrated over the last decade in the southern portion
of the basin, in Wyoming.
However, in recent years, exploration began pushing north into Montana. And
Mars’ ranch
soon began to push back, with lawsuits against the companies involved.
Mars’ influence on the rolling plains of southeastern Montana could
be put to the test by state and federal laws favoring oil and gas development.
Under a property regime known as split estates, landowners in many Western
state do not necessarily control the minerals beneath their property. In the
Diamond
Cross case, Fidelity and another company, Pinnacle Gas Resources, have oil
and gas leases on the ranch that predate Mars’ ownership, according to
public records and company officials.
State law gives the companies the right to enter Mars’ land to drill on
those leases. So far, however, he’s held them at bay.
“
Forrest has a lot of money but he’s in the same boat as anyone else,” said
Beth Kaeding, chairwoman of the Northern Plains Resource Council, a conservation
group of which Mars is a member.
“
If you don’t own the mineral rights, it doesn’t matter how huge your
ranch is, how politically powerful you are, how much money you have,” Kaeding
said. “Mineral rights trump surface rights.”
Public records show the billionaire began to amass property in southeastern
Montana as early as 2003 - just as natural gas production in the area was booming.
Since then, Mars has launched or joined multiple court fights through Diamond
Cross. The lawsuits have challenged the industry’s depletion of water
reserves, a proposal to build a new coal railroad through the ranch and, most
recently,
efforts to drill on Diamond Cross itself.
Ranch manager Denise Wood said Mars had kept the property as a working cattle
ranch and his concerns about energy development mirrored those of many long-time
residents, particularly the practice of pumping out underground water reserves
to access trapped pockets of natural gas.
Those reserves are depended on by farmers and ranchers to water their fields
and livestock. Energy companies sometimes capture the water and hold it in
stock ponds that ranchers can use, but often it is lost as runoff.
Mars attorney O’Toole said the lawsuits were not meant to block development.
“
That’s not the point,” he said. “The point is we can’t
lose all that water and at the same time have no provision to put it back.”
In the most recent legal case involving Diamond Cross, Wyoming-based Pinnacle
Gas Resources is attempting to begin drilling on a lease it holds to more than
10,000 acres of Mars property.
When the company notified Diamond Cross that it planned to begin drilling
on the ranch by early January, O’Toole responded with a letter barring Pinnacle
employees from the ranch. Pinnacle sued, demanding access.
“
As a lawyer it should come down to the facts and the law, but there’s no
denying that money talks,” said Pinnacle attorney Chris Mangen.
A Mars victory would mark “a significant change in the interpretation of
state law that says you do have access,” said Tom Richmond, administrator
for the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation. That agency is a defendant
in a separate Diamond Cross lawsuit, over its approval
of some of Pinnacle’s drilling
plans.
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