If it's your property, whether separated from another element or not ... it is your property.
I have leased farmland for the coal in my career. You would be surprised at the number of land owners who don’t know someone else owns the coal or other valuables underneath.
It’s an issue because the gas companies want to alter state law to skirt your rights as an individual property owner to say no to drilling.
They want to bundle or “collectivize” these rights for streamlined negotiation purposes and to minimize the impact of holdout landowners.
I am all for Marcellus Fracking but we cannot do this sort of harm to individual property rights.
Not generally. Mineral rights exist separate from the property ownership. They have separate deeds and separate transferal procedures—in most jurisdictions. It’s been that way for a very long time.