How Long Is Forever?

The Lowham family in 1993 placed a conservation easement on their property and donated the easement to Johnson County. The easement granted the county the right to restrict the property to agricultural use and prohibit its subdivision. Six years later, the Dowd family bought the ranch and began farming the land, until the energy company that owned the mineral rights to their land began drilling for natural gas. The Dowd family now claims that the fragmentation and contamination of their land compromised its viability for agriculture. They pleaded that the drilling activity effectively made the conservation easement meaningless, because the impact of the drilling activity was no different than if it were to be developed for residential use - exactly what the Lowham family didn't want. In 2002, the County Commission agreed with the Dowds and voted unanimously not to sell the easement to the Dowds, but simply to abandon it.