More than a dozen Wayne County property owners have filed a class action lawsuit over the state's delay in issuing fracking permits.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court. It names Governor Pat Quinn and IDNR Director Marc Miller. The landowners claim the state has essentially taken their property without compensation because it has yet to issue permits for high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the state, despite passing the law more than a year ago.
A state legislative panel is currently reviewing the proposed fracking rules. It has until mid-November to make a decision. The landowners say the delay has left the lands that they leased to energy developers in limbo. The suit claims more than a million acres have been leased in Wayne, White, Hamilton, Edwards, and Lawrence counties worth more than 100-million dollars. The class action lawsuit represents more than one-thousand people in Wayne County. It seeks damages in excess of 50-thousand dollars for each of the four counts contained in the class-action lawsuit.
The plaintiffsin the case include Amy Pollard, James and Patricia Pollard, Carolyn and Terry Legg, John and Paula Masterson, Nikki and Jeremy Carters, Cheryl and Noel Edmison, and Patricia and Joshua Vaughn.
