Opinion ID: 1979901
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: whether the board's findings of fact make adequate reference to the underlying facts supporting its ultimate findings of the issues, including the protection of correlative rights and the relative values of the tracts, within the unit area?

Text: The appellants claim the decision of the Board does not protect their correlative rights. SDCL 45-9-2(15). They claim the Board did not protect their correlative rights by adopting the participation formula, and the inclusion in the unit of unproductive acreage. From the beginning of the hearings commencing on February 17, 1983, through the March 17, 1983 hearing, appellants uniformly took the position that all they wanted was to delete certain lands from the unit. They repeatedly stated that they were not seeking to change the allocation formula. The only evidence presented to the Board at any of the hearings regarding the participation formula was presented by the expert witnesses of Koch. The appellants never submitted any evidence as to what they considered to be an appropriate allocation formula. They did present some evidence at the April hearing regarding the hypothetical impact of this formula upon their royalties. Appellants' claim of error here must fail for at least two reasons. The first is that appellants failed to properly preserve these issues for appeal. None of the appellants made a record in the underlying proceedings in any way challenging the form or sufficiency of the Board's findings and order with regard to correlative rights or relative values of the separately owned tracts in the unit or the formula for allocating unit production. Nowhere did appellants offer an alternative allocation formula, even though invited to do so by the Board. Objections not raised before the administrative agency are not preserved for appeal. Matter of S.D. Water Mgmt. Bd., 351 N.W.2d at 122. Secondly, the Findings of Fact adopted by the Board are accompanied by a concise statement of the underlying facts, especially when one considers the Unit Agreement itself, which was incorporated by reference in the Board's Findings. At Finding M, the Board states that allocation to the separate tracts shall be in accordance with the Unit Operating Agreement attached to the Unit Agreement, which, as pointed out, was incorporated, by reference, in the Board's Findings. The Board weighed the expert opinion evidence presented to it; its decision finds ample support in the record.