Marcellus Shale Driller Fighting South Fayette Ordinance

- Marcellus Shale Driller Fighting South Fayette Ordinance

Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
by Erich Schwartzel

Range Resources made a significant move Tuesday in what is likely the first step in a legal challenge to the wave of small-town regulations on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based company filed an appeal to the zoning hearing board of South Fayette that calls its drilling ordinance an "illegal" infraction against the company's business pursuits.

Range Resources says the township's zoning ordinance enforces buffer zones around schools, hospitals and certain commercial areas that force a de facto moratorium on drilling throughout the entire township.

That violates the portion of Pennsylvania's Municipalities Planning Code that requires all municipalities to "allow for reasonable development of minerals" as part of any zoning ordinance, the company said.

The matter is before the zoning hearing board because the drilling regulations involved the township's zoning ordinance.

A date for the zoning hearing has not been set, but Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella said his company will take the issue to the Court of Common Pleas and up the legal ladder if it is rejected by the South Fayette authorities.

If Range Resources wins a ruling in a higher court, it could create a precedent and threaten to overturn scores of small-town ordinances across Pennsylvania.

Throughout Western Pennsylvania, townships have passed ordinances that further regulate drilling beyond state law or take steps to mitigate side effects like road damage or noise control.

Range Resources owns approximately 4,000 acres in South Fayette but has not drilled any Marcellus wells. The ordinance was approved last November after more than a year of public hearings and input from energy companies, including Range Resources.

South Fayette solicitor Jonathan Kamin said the ordinance still allows drilling in "many zoning districts" throughout the township -- they just might not be in the convenient areas that Range Resources would prefer.

"Everyone has recognized that this is a use that cannot be banned," said Mr. Kamin.

Local communities like South Fayette have drafted conditional use ordinances to deal with natural gas drilling, which require every well site to undergo an approval process prior to drilling.

Energy companies say the site-specific requirements make as much sense as requiring a new driver's license in every town, and that the process slows predictability in an industry that plans years in advance.

"It's death by a thousand paper cuts," said Mr. Pitzarella.

The South Fayette ordinance enforces regulations that are already in place as part of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act, and Range Resources says that regulatory double-dipping is illegal.

"[South Fayette] unlawfully seeks to achieve the same purposes and to regulate the same features of the development of oil and natural gas which are regulated exclusively and comprehensively by the Commonwealth," the appeal states.

Range Resources said the conditions of the ordinance are a "de facto taking" of land that make it impossible to drill. The company says this violates the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says private property cannot be taken for public use "without just compensation."

With the ordinance in place, Range Resources calculated the potential loss to the company and its leaseholders in South Fayette to be nearly $200 million.

Range Resources has already challenged local ordinances that it interprets as going too far. During deliberations for a conditional use ordinance in Mount Pleasant last April, the company sent a letter to residents threatening to move into "more cooperative communities" should the ordinance pass.

That ordinance did pass in June, and Range Resources has kept its promise to not drill any new wells in Mount Pleasant as long as it stays in place.

The appeal filed Tuesday in South Fayette is the latest in a series of recent challenges to local drilling regulations. Earlier this month, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl refused to sign a city council measure that would have banned drilling within Pittsburgh city limits, and a similar ban in Morgantown, W.Va., was overturned by a judge last Friday.

Copyright (c) 2011, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Gas Driller Opposes Pipeline Rules, Asks Landowners to Raise Concerns

- Gas Driller Opposes Pipeline Rules, Asks Landowners to Raise Concerns

Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
by Laura Legere, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.

New permitting requirements affecting natural gas pipelines in Pennsylvania have raised the ire of Chesapeake Energy, which is encouraging natural gas leaseholders to join it in protesting the rules.

In a recent letter sent to landowners in the Northern Tier, Chesapeake's vice president for government relations, David J. Spigelmyer, called the updated requirements enacted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on July 1 "unnecessary, time consuming and redundant."

Delays caused by the new permit reviews have stranded 128 of the company's drilled and completed Marcellus Shale wells without pipelines and are "costing Pennsylvanians royalty income," he wrote.

The new rules replace federal regulations that expired in June controlling pipeline construction and other surface-water impacts in Pennsylvania. A change in the regulations requires companies to detail all of the streams and wetlands to be crossed by a pipeline project -- some of which stretch for hundreds of miles -- rather than outlining only the impacts of each stream crossing individually.

The new permits allow regulators to consider the cumulative surface-water impacts of the projects, which are increasingly spiderwebbing the commonwealth to tie new Marcellus Shale wells to interstate pipelines that bring the gas to market.

Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Stacy A. Ouellette said the permit "streamlines the process for activities throughout the state of Pennsylvania" and within multiple Army Corps of Engineers boundaries. The permit also allows Pennsylvania "to issue permits for activities having minimal impact to waterways and wetlands, reducing redundancy between the corps and state," she said.

In a description of the regulations published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin in May, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer said that the revised permit incorporates federal and state standards in one process and "continues a streamlined process for permit applicants without compromising comprehensive environmental protection."

PennFuture president Jan Jarrett said the cumulative review offered with the new permit is "a good thing." The need for additional regulatory oversight of pipeline construction was highlighted in recent weeks when two failures at a pipeline project in Susquehanna County dumped drilling mud into a high-quality waterway, she said.

"It's unfortunate to see a company coming out opposing updated regulations that address natural gas pipelines," she said. "We would rather see them doubling down and working with the regulations that are clearly aimed at protecting Pennsylvania's water resources rather than stirring up and scaring the landowners who they work with."

Chesapeake said the potential review of all stream and wetland crossings increases the average review time for a project from 45 days to nearly 300 days and unfairly singles out Pennsylvania projects for extra layers of review.

Along with the letter written by Mr. Spigelmyer, Chesapeake provided landowners with a form letter to send to their senators and congressmen that says, "At a time of great economic uncertainty in this country, it seems unproductive that the federal government would take such a drastic step to limit the ability of landowners like me to benefit economically from natural gas production."

In a statement Monday, Mr. Spigelmyer said the Baltimore District of the Army Corps of Engineers began applying aspects of the permit change over the last year and "the delays are already evident."

"This is obviously of great concern to landowners who've had wells drilled on their land and who are wondering why their wells are not yet producing and marketing gas," he said. "It is of equal concern to Chesapeake as each of our wells represents the investment of millions of dollars in capital that can't begin to produce a recovery of investment, let alone a return on investment, if we cannot predictably plan for the development of pipelines necessary to get gas to market."

Copyright (c) 2011, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.

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Gas Driller Citations to Be Reviewed

Gas Driller Citations to Be Reviewed

Thursday, March 31, 2011
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
by  Timothy Puko, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Every Marcellus shale drilling citation will need a review from the new Department of Environmental Protection chief before final approval, said an agency spokeswoman.

All violation notices for gas drillers and the enforcement actions the agency plans must be e-mailed to Acting Secretary Michael Krancer, spokeswoman Katherine Gresh said. The department's six regions each enforce rules differently, and Krancer is trying to improve consistency across the state, she said, noting the policy may be temporary.

But putting a political appointee in a position to micromanage regulatory enforcement could lead to unfair interference on behalf of campaign donors, said Myron Arnowitt, state director for CleanWaterAction.org. Gov. Tom Corbett received $835,000 in campaign contributions from gas companies, according to MarcellusMoney.org, a website run by Common Cause Pennsylvania and Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania.

"Krancer has talked a lot about being scientifically-based, factually-based and implementing the law," Arnowitt said. "It's not clear how what he's doing does any of that."

Corbett has promised he will give no special consideration to the industry because of the donations he has received.

The DEP has spent much of the past three years playing catch-up with the gas drilling industry, going on a hiring spree to ensure it had enough employees to match the plethoraof permit requests statewide. There were 1,200 violations last year, and adding another layer of bureaucracy to enforcement raises more questions about how quickly the agency can stop lawbreakers, Arnowitt said.

Gresh said the effort won't be time consuming, but she didn't know how much time it might add to Krancer's day or how many more documents he might need to review. Ultimately, it will make the agency more efficient by ensuring new staffers received proper training and are enforcing regulations consistently, she said.

"We have communications like that around the department all the time. This is one aimed at achieving a goal that is very important to Secretary Krancer," Gresh said. "We'll take whatever time is necessary to ensure the consistency to improve efficiency, protect the environment, and, you know, which will benefit all Pennsylvania."