We have 350 acres that borders a National Wildlife Management Wilderness Area. We hope to lease our mineral rights. I was wondering if there would possibly be any problems leasing our mineral rights since we border the National Forest?
If I remember most of the land was expropriated with the landowner reserving the minerals forever. This would leave BLM out of the picture as far as the lease goes but a horizontal could be drilled under them from an outside interest. The Gov was abstracting all the property in Kisatchie about 10 years ago and was going to try to get the minerals based on the precription laws in Louisiana. I asked an oil and gas attorney about the chances of them geting the minerals and he told me that he thought it would be a slim chance.
Being designated as a wilderness area caused a lot of problems a few years back because of fire. If I remember correctly no wheeled vechicles can go into the area, there was a lot of trees damaged from the pine beetle that were down and a fire started. A wildlife management area doesn't have the strict rules that a wilderness area has.