In PA zoning out gas drilling by townships is on the chopping block

Bust for local zoning, boom for gas drilling

Monday, December 19, 2011 6:10 am
By Amanda Cregan Staff Writer | 0 comments

The natural gas drilling boom might forever alter Pennsylvania's communities.

State lawmakers took the first step last week in approving legislation that would impose an impact fee on oil and gas companies. But tucked into that legislation is an ultimate showdown between local and state governance.

Under Senate Bill 1100 and House Bill 1950, municipalities would be stripped of their zoning authority when it comes to drilling, which would allow gas companies and the state to decide where gas wells would be placed.

The legislation would require towns to allow drilling in every zoning district.

Though municipalities lack the authority to ban gas drilling outright in their own towns, some, like Nockamixon, have come out in front of drillers.

Companies are regulated under Pennsylvania's Oil and Gas Act guidelines, and they must be permitted by the Department of Environmental Protection. In this region, gas wells within the Delaware River watershed must also be permitted by the Delaware River Basin Commission.

And under township ordinances, many local officials have already laid down the rules as to where gas drilling operations can occur.

In Nockamixon, roughly 300 property owners -- with the bulk of them in residential areas -- have signed gas leases.

But the Upper Bucks community has been able to cage companies seeking to do exploratory drilling in recent years by restricting gas drilling operations to its industrial zone.

If state lawmakers strip towns like Nockamixon of their zoning authority, that cage door swings wide open, said Doylestown attorney Jordan Yeager.

"It would devastate," said Yeager, who represents Nockamixon supervisors.

The character and landscape of Pennsylvania towns would be permanently blemished, he said.

Natural gas wells could be placed anywhere and everywhere across communities. In residential neighborhoods, on preserved lands and historic sites, next to schools and day care facilities, in close proximity to municipal water reservoirs ... the list in boundless, said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

The DEP, however, does maintain the right to deny a well permit application based on the impact it would have on public resources, like historical sites, endangered habitats and drinking water supplies.

"It's really a shocking proposal by the Legislature," she said, of the loss of zoning control.

"It's wrong. It's going to hurt municipalities, and it's going to make it more likely, and even unavoidable, that pollution will occur as a result of drilling."

Neighbors would also have no one to complain to if gas drilling operations acted in contrast to a community's noise, traffic and lighting standards. As part of the legislation, township officials would lose the authority to enforce rules regarding safety or nuisances on gas well sites, said Carluccio.

Carluccio called the bill a sweetheart deal among drillers and lawmakers. The state would collect a long-awaited tax or fee on drillers in exchange for making it easier on those companies to do business.

"I think it's a quid pro quo," she said. "It says ‘OK, we'll pay something, but you've got to make it easy for us."

Not so, said Marcellus Shale Coalition spokesman Steve Forde.

Lawmakers are working to "provide some certainty and some consistency for an industry that's having a pretty dynamic impact on Pennsylvania."

Natural-gas drilling supports 300,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, with an average annual wage of $74,000. And drilling proponents expect those job numbers will continue to rise; ultimately providing a big boost to unemployed and underemployed workers and state and local economies.

The new legislation would protect that job development. Also, landowners who want to sell their mineral rights to drillers would be able to depend on consistent regulations, said Forde.

Though the new regulations would allow gas wells to be opened on nearly any parcel of land in Pennsylvania, Forde also notes that Marcellus Shale drilling is mostly concentrated in rural sections of the state.

On Wednesday, the state Senate passed an amended version of HB 1950, with a 28-22 vote.

Sens. Stewart Greenleaf, R-12, and Bob Mensch, R-29, voted in favor.

Sens. Chuck McIlhinney, R-10, and Tommy Tomlinson, R-6, voted against.

Now the bill heads back to the House to vote on the amended version. The next step would be the governor's signature to make it law.

On Wednesday, representatives from more than 44 municipalities in seven Western Pennsylvania counties met in a first-of-its-kind Marcellus Shale town hall meeting, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. They aimed to send a clear, unified message to state lawmakers: Don't take away local control.

David Sanko, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, does not endorse the legislation.

PSATS supports an impact fee and encourages lawmakers to strike a balance between preserving the environment, protecting Pennsylvanians' quality of life and spurring economic growth, but the state cannot remove local control from the equation, Bucks County's former chief operating officer wrote in an opinion piece that appeared in Harrisburg's Patriot News on Tuesday.

"In the last century, in the ‘race to embrace' coal, timber, oil and steel, Pennsylvania didn't necessarily ‘get it right' when it came to responsible development of those natural resources.

"In a new century, we have a new opportunity to ‘get it right this time.' Shame on everyone if we miss that boat," he wrote.

More than 1,600 gas wells have already been drilled in Pennsylvania. It's just a small slice of what's to come.

Most of the wells lie in the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation that stretches across Northern and Western Pennsylvania.

It's been called the "Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas" and is believed to hold at least 100 years' worth of the energy supply.

In Bucks County, gas companies have been seeking to break ground on exploratory gas drilling; suspecting that pockets of natural gas lie underneath rural Upper Bucks communities.

Those 300 gas leases in Nockamixon have generally been regarded as worthless since Michigan-based gas company Arbor Resources gave up its legal challenge, and reportedly sold many of the leases to other companies.

With local zoning constraints removed, those gas leases might suddenly become much more valuable to drillers.

The vote was aimed at setting up a joint House-Senate panel to adopt a compromise bill. It would receive a "yes or no" vote in each chamber, said Forde.

It would not include the option for future amendments, which means a final "yes" vote for a gas drilling impact fee would also end local control.

That vote will occur after the new year.