West Virginia Code 22-6-34 – Offenses; penalties
(a) Any person or persons, firm, partnership, partnership association or corporation who willfully violates any provision of this article or any rule or order promulgated hereunder shall be subject to a civil penalty not exceeding $2,500. Each day a violation continues after notice by the division constitutes a separate offense. The penalty shall be recovered by a civil action brought by the division, in the name of the state, before the circuit court of the county in which the subject well or facility is located. All such civil penalties collected shall be credited to the General Fund of the state.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 22-6-34
- Casing: means a string or strings of pipe commonly placed in wells drilled for natural gas or petroleum or both. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Division: means the Department of Environmental Protection. See West Virginia Code 22-1-2
- Facility: means any facility utilized in the oil and gas industry in this state and specifically named or referred to in this article or in article eight or nine of this chapter, other than a well or well site. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Gas: means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined as oil in this section. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Offense: includes every act or omission for which a fine, forfeiture, or punishment is imposed by law. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
- Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
- Person: means any natural person, corporation, firm, partnership, partnership association, venture, receiver, trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, fiduciary or other representative of any kind, and includes any government or any political subdivision or any agency thereof. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- State: when applied to a part of the United States and not restricted by the context, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories, and the words "United States" also include the said district and territories. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
- Waste: means (i) physical waste, as the term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Well: means any shaft or hole sunk, drilled, bored or dug into the earth or into underground strata for the extraction or injection or placement of any liquid or gas, or any shaft or hole sunk or used in conjunction with such extraction or injection or placement. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
(b) Any person or persons, firm, partnership, partnership association or corporation willfully violating any of the provisions of this article which prescribe the manner of drilling and casing or plugging and filling any well, or which prescribe the methods of conserving gas from waste, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment in jail for not exceeding twelve months, or both, in the discretion of the court, and prosecutions under this section may be brought in the name of the State of West Virginia in the court exercising criminal jurisdiction in the county in which the violation of such provisions of the article or terms of such order was committed, and at the instance and upon the relation of any citizens of this state.