Looking at a diagram of the extent of the the underground LHC tunnels (eg here), it passes underneath fields and villages well outside the CERN site. Did CERN have to get permission from and/or compensate all the owners of those properties? Or is it deep enough that it is considered fair game for anyone?
Google gives the depth of the LHC as between 50 to 175 metres (164 to 574 ft). It also gives the depth of the deepest station on the London Underground as 58.5 metres (192 ft). Given that one of the deepest subway systems in the world is, at its deepest, comparable to the shallowest depth of the LHC it would seem likely that the permission required would be similar, i.e. from the respective governments rather than landowners.
Don’t know about the LHC (or rather LEP, for which the tunnel was originally dug), but it appears money had to change hands for such purposes to dig what they managed to of the SSC in Texas. From Riordan, Hoddleson and Kolb’s Tunnel Visions (Chicago, 2015), p153:
The law might clearly be quite different in France and Switzerland.
My organization is involved in a tunneling project at similar depths. We had to obtain an easement from each individual property owner, and compensate them for the value of the easement (which due to its depth, wasn’t a whole lot of money). If the property owner refused to deal with us, we were prepared to go the eminent domain route, but I don’t know if this was necessary or not.
It specifies on the deeds to my house that I don’t own the “mineral rights” beneath. Would that be the same thing, or do I own the land but not anything of value in there?
IANAL, but as I understand it, you own the land down as far as you can go. But since you do not own the mineral rights, you do not own the oil, natural gas, etc. underneath your property.
In other words, if someone comes along and “drinks your milkshake” (There Will Be Blood reference), they can suck all of the gas and oil out from under your property and they don’t owe you diddley. But if someone wants to tunnel under your property, they need to purchase an easement from you.
Mineral rights can get pretty complicated. That’s probably why they just took the simple route and specified that you don’t own any mineral rights on your property. Best to let all of the other milkshake drinkers sort it out.
They are separate things, but they may be tied together, like a house and land, or separate. Like a House. And Land.
Where I live, nobody has mineral rights. Almost nobody had depth rights. Only a very few allotments in some old areas, for some odd and always unexplained historical reason, have rights extending down much further than that required to build a house.
I assume that anybody wanting to build an office tower here has to get state government permission. But anybody wanting to build an office tower is gonna need all kinds of permits anyway, so that won’t be much of a bar.
I’m told that in London, it’s different. London is totally full of underground services, some secret, many not publicly mapped. Getting permission there is a big step.
As far as I can see, my little bit of UK land goes all the way down to the turtles, so anyone wanting to tunnel underneath will have to pay me something for permission and also indemnify me against any potential damage. Looking up - it seems that the near air (up to 500 feet or so) is mine, but after that, it’s anybodys.
No wonder it takes so long to get started on a new underground tunnel in London like the new Elizabeth Line. It’s not always clear who actually owns a particular plot so it must be a nightmare.
So FWIW, I looked into this further this morning, and we ended up paying a typical homeowner about $1,200 or so for the subterranean easement under their property. Our project involved several hundred of these easements. If you think about it, the easements in question did affect the properties somewhat – for example, you would be unable to drill a deep bedrock groundwater well on any of the properties in the future (which is unlikely to be an issue because all of the properties are already connected to public water).
In a few cases, some property owners ignored or refused our requests for a subterranean easement. In these cases, we started down the eminent domain path, which basically consisted of our lawyers sending the property owner a notice that they risked getting less than (or even nothing) of what we were offering for the easement rights. I believe all of the recalcitrant property owners agreed at that point.
Interesting stuff. Thanks, robby.
That’s a classical principle often expressed in the Latin phrase usque ad inferos - down to hell. But it’s more of an idomatic phrase than actual law; here is a law journal article on it - summary: The deeper you go, the less likely courts will be to accept attempts of the owner of the surface plot to prevent activities underneath his land.
In a major project like the LHC, having to deal with individual landowners would be a nightmare - you will always have holdouts who refuse consent, either as a matter of principle or to extract exorbitant payment. Which is why in such cases, the issue is usually dealt with by public sector action, either via enacting specific statutes authorising the construction or by expropriating the landowners (in what Americans would call eminent domain), for fair compensation. Here is a Frech government decree from 1998 doing so for the construction of the LHC.
Yeah, I’m not too thrilled with the government being able to say “sell it to me or I’ll steal it from you.” You seem proud enough of the thug lawyers, though.
As I noted upthread for our project which crossed hundreds of properties far below ground, we did in fact deal with each and every of the hundreds of property owners. Any holdouts who refused to consent or asked for exorbitant compensation would have been dealt with by eminent domain, but as I stated, I don’t believe this was necessary after a few rounds of legal notices from our lawyers.
It would have been helpful for us if the state government had enacted legislation authorizing our project, but that didn’t happen for whatever reason. We did get all the necessary permits and approvals, though, of course.
While I’m not necessarily “proud” of the lawyers, you do appear to be poisoning the well of discussion by characterizing them as “thug lawyers.” And the law requires that all property owners be compensated for the market value of the property or easement in question.
In any event, this gets into the whole reason why the concept of eminent domain exists. First off, cases like Kelo v. City of New London are an abomination, IMHO. The benefit went to a private developer, and the public benefit was ephemeral, and ultimately non-existent as the property in question is now a vacant lot.
In the case of my public agency’s project, it is (again, IMHO) truly a case of the greater public good. The project is part of a multi-billion dollar program to upgrade the regional wastewater infrastructure to address a federal consent decree and consent order. The goal of program is minimize or eliminate combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) that impact residents, businesses, and the recreational and aesthetic benefits of local waterways and Long Island Sound.
Basically, our region currently has an an antiquated 19th century sewer collection/treatment system that does not satisfy today’s public and private needs and legal requirements. The point of this particular project is to construct a storage tunnel that will collect and store combined (i.e. sanitary and storm) wastewater so that it can all be properly treated instead of allowing it to overflow in large storm events into local receiving waters.
The tunnel in question is hundreds of feet below ground. It passes under interstate highways, homes, and businesses. The permitting and regulatory requirements are immense. We are required to install seismic monitoring points on the surface to ensure that we do not affect surface structures and infrastructure. Legally, we have to obtain easements from property owners, and it would not be in the public interest for the project to grind to a halt because one property owner either refuses to deal with us, or demands a billion dollars for an easement.
In any event, I don’t believe we ever got to the point of invoking eminent domain. I believe our lawyers were able to convince all property owners to grant us the necessary easements.
Utility tunnels lost to time I can understand but what kind of utility would be secret? Some kind of Illuminati phlogiston?
Remember that London is a national capital. There are probably bunkers and tunnels for governmental use in the event of war or other emergency.
There are indeed endless rumours about secret tunnels riddling Westminster. The obvious examples of the Cabinet War Rooms and COBRA aside, I’m not sure I give them much credence. These are the sort of tales people, especially those working in the area, like to tell.
For whatever reason, the approval process is opaque. You submit a proposed route, and you either get approval or they tell you that you need a different route.
Melbourne, my city, is built on flooded fractured basalt. Putting anything down there is both unusually difficult and unusually expensive. Anywhere you tunnel, you can be pretty sure nobody else has ever tunneled there before.