Broad form deed

[1] Based on English legal theory but an American creation from the early 1900s, the broad form deed was used by land and coal companies in many states within the Appalachian Region.

[2] Pressure for materials to fuel the industrial revolution resulted in development of new applications of estate severance based on the previous concepts;[2] this included the broad form deed.

[3] As schoolteacher from rural eastern Kentucky, John CC Mayo managed to accumulate quite a bit of wealth by purchasing mineral rights.

[4] Using deed books and knowledge gained from the Kentucky Wesleyan College library, Mayo was able to determine those who had property over the most promising mineral deposits and started making deals.

[4] After facing controversy in Virginia over how land was acquired, Mayo crafted the broad form deed so that the companies he worked for more securely held the rights to mine the minerals.

[4] As technology progressed during the 1950s, the broad form deed became a controversial issue especially in Kentucky and Tennessee; machines became more advanced and could mine large portions of land.

[5] Over the next few decades complaints about the broad form deed inspired state legislators to make changes to protect Kentucky's surface land owners.

In the 1956 case of Buchanan v. Watson, the Supreme Court of Kentucky established that damages made by modern mining techniques would not be assessed and granted the removal of all minerals on estates.

[9] The legislators found that police powers to invade a citizen's private home did not extend unless the situation threatened the land owner's welfare and health.

8 LTD (1975) case, the United States Supreme Court found that strip mining was unhealthy for the environment and therefore posed a threat to human life.

In Akers v. Baldwin it was ruled that the Mineral Deed Act was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of powers and it “disturbed the Buchanan decision”.

[17] Resources including oil and shale gas are commonly extracted, but depending on the technology used, come with a high risk of contaminating the surface owner's land.

[18] Older oil and gas wells were less complicated than modern mining and fracking methods, used less water, and were not as harmful to the environment because of less waste production.

[18] There have been more cases of spilled fracking fluid in 2009 in Hopewell Township and Dunkard Creek Pennsylvania, both resulting in the death of many fish and amphibians, to name a few.

The water tested was shown to contain high levels of "chloride and bromide, strontium, radium, oxygen, and hydrogen isotopic compositions.