Easement Natural Paper

Neeta. Dear Neeta: A gas easement is a portion of someone's private property, usually near one of the property lines, where the gas company or other utility service is permitted to bury their service lines and where they may occasionally need to do maintenance or repairs of one kind or another.

How much money should landowners get when an oil or gas pipeline crosses their land? As it stands, landowners receive a one-time payment roughly based on the length of the pipeline, with rates varying from $5 to $50 per foot or more for a Marcellus or Utica shale pipeline right-of-way agreement.

Pipelines can reduce property values by 5 to 40 percent by making them less attractive to potential buyers, according to local Realtors.

If an easement is 50 rods long, that is almost an acre. In a recent case, a pipeline company paid some owners $180 per rod and others $767 per rod for the same project.

Easements are treated as a recovery of the basis of the property first, with any excess proceeds treated as capital gain, which is taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. The basis of property that offsets an easement is limited to the basis of the affected acres or square footage.

A pipeline easement specifically gives the easement holder the right to build and maintain a pipeline on a landowner's property. It doesn't grant the easement holder actual ownership of the land, just a right to use the land for pipeline purposes.

API recommends setbacks of 50 feet from petroleum and hazardous liquids lines for new homes, businesses, and places of public assembly (API 2003). It also recommends 25 feet for garden sheds, septic tanks, and water wells and 10 feet for mailboxes and yard lights.