The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Business

August 17, 2011

Ordinance regulating gas drilling being challenged

Associated Press

---- — PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A major Marcellus Shale drilling company is challenging a southwestern Pennsylvania township's ordinance to regulate oil and gas well development.

Range Resources-Appalachia LLC filed the notice Tuesday challenging the validity of the South Fayette Township ordinance, which the Pittsburgh suburb gave final approval to last month.

The ordinance requires drillers to obtain a land operations permit for each well and creates buffers around schools, hospitals and certain types of businesses. It also requires a $5,000 permit fee from drillers.

Range Resources said the ordinance is illegal because the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act pre-empts and supersedes any and all local ordinances.

Even if that were not the case, the zoning rules and buffer zones effectively put the entire township off-limits to drilling, Range Resources said. That amounts to an “exclusionary zoning of oil and gas development in violation of Pennsylvania law,” the company argues.

In short, Range Resources said it is being “deprived of its legal right to develop its oil and natural gas property interests” on about 4,000 acres it has leased in the township.

The township’s manager, Michael Hoy, said in an e-mail that he though the “merits of the ordinance will stand on their own as we move through the legal process.” He did not comment on the legal challenge because he had not yet had the opportunity to review the 35-page document, which he will file “with the Zoning Hearing Board following established township policy.”

It was not immediately clear when the board will take up the challenge.

The industry is working with municipalities to “responsibly drill for natural gas,” company spokesman Matt Pitzarella said in a statement.

“Due to a lack of statewide standards some have taken extreme and illegal measures like South Fayette,” Pitzarella said. “We want local regulations that demand a high standard for gas drilling, but they must be reasonable and predictable so that communities, regulators and the industry can plan accordingly.”

A 2009 Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion held that municipalities can limit the location of wells through zoning, but cannot regulate their operation.

Pittsburgh has banned drilling altogether within the city limits – with proponents arguing that an outright ban doesn’t amount to regulation, because an activity can’t be “regulated” if it doesn’t occur at all. Only about 1 percent of the city’s land is leased to drillers, and no companies have actively pursued drilling or challenged the ban in court.

The South Fayette ordinance doesn’t allow drilling on parcels smaller than 10 acres and otherwise makes drilling a conditional use in six of the township’s 10 zoning districts.

Buffer zones would keep wells 1,500 feet from homes or 2,500 feet from schools or hospitals. Range Resources contends those rules are so restrictive that only 0.5 percent – or about 62 acres – in the township are legally drillable, even without taking the 10-acre minimum into account.

Combined with the conditional use restrictions, Range Resources said those buffers leave “no place within the township where oil and gas development can occur.”

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