Case ID: mich-app_206/html/0311-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

DART ENERGY CORPORATION v IOSCO TOWNSHIP
    Docket No. 151317.
    Submitted April 14, 1994, at Lansing.
    Decided April 29, 1994;
    approved for publication July 25, 1994, at 9:15 A.M.
    Dart Energy Corporation brought an action in the Ingham Circuit Court against Iosco Township and the Department of Natural Resources, seeking a declaration that the department has exclusive jurisdiction to regulate an oil and gas well that has been converted to a brine injection well. The court, William E. Collette, J., granted summary disposition for the plaintiff and the department. The township appealed.
    The Court of Appeals held:
    
    Iosco Township is expressly prohibited from regulating an oil and gas well that has been converted to a brine injection well. The Department of Natural Resources has exclusive jurisdiction to regulate such wells.
    Affirmed.
    Gas and Oil — Brine Injection Wells — Department of Natural « Resources.
    A township may not regulate an oil and gas well that has been converted to a brine injection well; the regulation of such wells is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Department of Natural Resources (MCL 125.271, 319.1 et seq.; MSA 5.2963[1], 13.139[1] et seq.).
    
    
      James Anthony Siver and Kevin V.B. Schumacher, for Dart Energy Corporation.
    
      Parker, Miller & Kehoe (by Michael J. Kehoe), for Iosco Township.
    
      Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Thomas L. 
      
      Casey, Solicitor General, and Thomas J. Emery and Roland Hwang, Assistant Attorneys General, for the Department of Natural Resources.
    
      References
    Am Jur 2d, Gas and Oil § 146.
    Prohibiting or regulating removal or exploitation of oil and gas, minerals, soil, or other natural products within municipal limits. 10 ALR3d 1226.
    
      Amici Curiae:
    
      Bauckham, Sparks, Rolfe & Thomsen, P.C. (by John H. Bauckham and Eileen W. Wicklund), for Michigan Townships Association.
    
      Mika, Meyers, Beckett & Jones (by Michael C. Haines, Veryl N. Meyers, and William A. Horn), for Michigan Oil and Gas Association.
    Before: Holbrook, Jr., P.J., and Reilly and G. W. Hood, JJ.
    
      
       Circuit judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment.
    
   Per Curiam.

Plaintiff Dart Energy Corporation filed this action for a declaratory ruling and injunctive relief, claiming that defendant Department of Natural Resources had exclusive jurisdiction to regulate an oil and gas well that had been converted to a brine injection well. MCL 319.1 et seq.; MSA 13.139(1) et seq. The trial court granted plaintiff and defendant dnr’s respective motions for summary disposition. MCR 2.116(0(10). Defendant Iosco Township now appeals as of right. We affirm.

Defendant Iosco Township is expressly prohibited from regulating an oil and gas well that is converted to a brine injection well. MCL 125.271; MSA 5.2963(1). Defendant dnr has exclusive jurisdiction to regulate such wells. MCL 319.1 et seq.; MSA 13.139(1) et seq., Addison Twp v Gout (On Rehearing), 435 Mich 809; 460 NW2d 215 (1990). Therefore, the trial court did not err in granting summary disposition to plaintiff and defendant DNR.

Affirmed.