This sounds like gold-digging, but I have read a lot about this guy. He really seemed to want to stay on the land and give it to his child. He could have taken millions for it a couple of years ago but chose to fight the state. He lost. At least he bled the bastards for almost 5 million. Emminent domain at its worst.
He's quite lucky the State didn't force an emminent domain action on him. With the recent ruling by the SCOTUS they probably wouldn't have had too much legal barrier to do so.