Drilling case has no legs
Taxpayers stuck with the bill anyway
Neighbors of a Marcellus Shale gas drilling operation in the largely rural neck of Westmoreland County are threatening to take their battle to shut down the enterprise to the state’s highest court. But they lost their case at both Common Pleas Court and Commonwealth Court, and they should take the hint: Their case has no legs.
Indeed, other municipalities throughout the region should take notice of this lost cause. It is costing money on both sides of the issue.
The story starts in Allegheny Township, a locale where leaders made a conscious decision in 2010 to pass an intentionally nonrestrictive zoning law that allows oil and gas drilling in all zoning districts. That’s unusual. Many municipalities carefully carve out specific swaths of land for specific development purposes. But Allegheny Township supervisors decided to allow drilling anywhere.
And drilling came. CNX Gas Co. won municipal approval in October 2014 for plans for a shale gas well on a tract of farmland in the township.
A few neighbors challenged the development, arguing that Pennsylvania’s 1971 Environmental Rights Amendment requires local governments to protect public health, safety and welfare and that those protections are undermined by the unrestrictive township zoning ordinance.
After losing in Common Pleas Court, the neighbors appealed to Commonwealth Court, which dismissed the argument, noting that conditions attached to the well-drilling permit should do the job of protecting the public. It affirmed the zoning regulations (or lack thereof) and underscored the validity of the law.
It is hard to argue with the court decisions. Duly elected township officials made a conscious choice to adopt broad and loose zoning rules in 2010. This was reasonable: Property owners can negotiate deals with drillers that can lead to financial windfalls for landowners if wells actually are drilled and actually produce. There’s no guarantee of such a windfall, of course.
Concerns that there could be safety and environmental problems caused by drilling and fracking are legitimate, but if citizens of a municipality don’t want this kind of activity near their backyards, they should lobby their elected leaders to enact zoning regulations that reflect their concerns or replace those officials with ones who will more narrowly allow drilling.
Opponents do not have the right to abrogate representative government via the courts. Trying for an end-run around legitimate zoning regulations by virtue of a 1971 statute did not and should not work. And taxpayers should not have to pay the price of defending the laws their elected officials passed.