OKLAHOMA CITY -- The recent increase in oil development in Oklahoma is altering the record books, and not in a good way.
County clerks in Woodward, Blaine, Kingfisher and Texas counties have reported thefts of land records - documents crucial to allowing further drilling.
Oklahoma Corporation Commission spokesman Matt Skinner said the county land records are important to the industry because Oklahoma is one of few states that keeps mineral rights separate from land ownership.
A petroleum developer must contact the commission and all parties who have an interest in an area before it can drill. The paperwork points developers toward who to contact.
"We don't have that information here at the Corporation Commission. The only place you can get those records is at the county. So if someone is screwing around with them, that's it," he said. "That would be a very serious offense. Extremely serious."
Several counties have installed security cameras to monitor the documents, and others are considering doing the same. The crime is a felony, punishable by a fine up to $500 and five years in jail.
"It's going to cost me not only the cost of replacing the pages, but also the time necessary to figure out which pages are missing," Texas County Clerk Marsha Hollingshead said. "Now we're going to have to go to the expense of setting up a video surveillance system to monitor people. It's really sad. We've found several pages missing, just ripped out from our books."
Woodward County Clerk Ron Hohweiler said the dozens of land records torn from books in his office represent some of the hottest drilling interests in the area. The correlation does not guarantee the crime was committed because of business motives, but it does seem to imply a connection, he said.
