Compensation Hearing In Gas Suit

A commission appointed to decide how much a Nebraska gas company must pay for taking property from Kansas land owners will hold its first compensation hearing next month.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot issued a formal notice Wednesday that the hearing will take place April 15 in the federal courthouse in Wichita.

The public hearing is the latest legal proceeding in a decades-old legal fight stemming from gas seeping from the Cunningham Storage Field in Kansas.

Nebraska-based Northern Natural Gas is condemning more than 9,100 acres spanning Pratt, Kingman and Reno counties.

Property owners won a key legal victory earlier this month when Belot ruled Northern must pay “just compensation” for any storage gas and native gas under the Kansas acreage.