Gas drilling companies take three PA townships to court

Cases to be heard by PA Supreme Court

By TOM KANE

PENNSYLVANIA - A municipality can’t pass a law aimed at limiting or hindering gas companies from drilling if the companies are operating legitimately, says the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act.

Despite this, there are three strong-minded municipalities that have passed such laws and are being sued by the gas companies.

Oakmont Borough in Allegheny County was sued in 2006 for refusing to give a gas company, Huntley & Huntley, a conditional-use permit to drill a well in a residential neighborhood. The county Court of Common Pleas supported the borough in its action but the Commonwealth Court of Appeals overturned the ruling.

Borough attorney Clifford Levine said the council is now taking its case to the state Supreme Court. Levine said the ruling contradicts considerable case law that municipalities can restrict land uses, such as quarries and landfills to specific zones, even when the state law controls where these kinds of operations can be located.

Oakmont should be able to decide the general areas where drilling can occur, Levine said.

Salem Township in Westmoreland County is in a similar battle over ordinances it passed in prohibiting a company to continue drilling methane wells wherever it chose.

“The company wants to drill 200 wells and use 200,000 gallons of water a day,” said township supervisor Robert Zundel. “We are concerned about the loss of water by our farmers. We feel that water is more important than any methane they might get.”

Salem, like Oakmont, went to the local court and was supported there. But the township was turned down by the Commonwealth Court on appeal and now has its case before the state Supreme Court.

On May 30, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the two cases.

A third municipality, Nockamixon Township in Bucks County, has used its zoning authority to pass ordinances regulating drilling activities. But a gas company, Michigan-based Arbor Resources, has received permits from the state to drill on two properties that the township is prohibiting.

The company and a group of associate companies operating in the area are asking a lower court to strike down the township ordinance on the ground that it is unconstitutional. This would clear the way for the gas companies to get to work on 240 leases that they hold.

The case is before the county Court of Common Pleas. “We are expecting that the court will not rule until the Supreme Court rules in the two other cases,” said Nockamixon township attorney Jordan Yaeger.