U.S. Steel gas well plan delayed by zoning issue
A zoning issue has at least temporarily plugged up controversial plans to drill Marcellus shale gas wells on U.S. Steel Corp.’s Edgar Thomson steel mill property along the Monongahela River and Turtle Creek in East Pittsburgh and North Versailles.
The East Pittsburgh Zoning Board on Monday evening began to hear testimony on an appeal by Merrion Oil & Gas of a January borough council decision revoking a two-year-old conditional use permit for construction of the well because, it said, the company hadn’t made use of the site.
The gas well project, touted by the steelmaker as a way to a low-cost dedicated supply of natural gas to its Mon Valley steel mills, is opposed by some community and environmental organizations because of safety and health concerns.
But testimony at the threehour hearing — which was halted at 10 p.m. and will resume at 7 p.m. Monday — was confined to whether the East Pittsburgh Borough Council was correct in unanimously voting to
suspend Merrion’s conditional use permit, an action that could further delay the New Mexico-based drilling company’s protracted efforts to secure three required state permits.
The board also extended the comment period by another week.
Harlan Stone, Merrion’s attorney, told the board that his client began development activities on the site shortly after its conditional use permit was granted in December 2017 and has been given “verbal assurances” by the state Department of Environmental Protection that deficiencies in its permit applications have been corrected and “approval will come shortly.”
“We were very shocked when the conditional use permit was revoked due to lack of action,” testified Ryan Davis, Merrion’s project manager. “We’ve been working diligently for three years on this. We didn’t realize there was a regulatory timeline.”
Mr. Davis testified that the company has already spent more than $2 million on the site for surveying, wetlands mapping and soil borings. But most of that amount — $1.3 million — was paid to lease gas rights from U.S. Steel and other adjacent property owners.
He said the company has “cured” all of the deficiencies cited in 12 DEP notices on its applications for erosion and sediment, stream crossing, and drilling permits.
Mr. Davis, in a phone interview prior to the hearing, said some of the application problems have occurred because the proposed site is on land already used for industrial operations.
“This falls outside the general permitting process for oil and gas operations,” he said. “It’s uncharted territory to do such a development on an industrial site. We’re working collaboratively with the DEP to meet the environmental requirements.”
In response to emailed questions, Lauren Frailey, a DEP spokeswoman, said the Merrion permit applications remain “under review,” and there is “no timeline for a determination.” The DEP’s website shows the company’s permit applications for all three state permits have been deficient.
According to the state applications under review by the DEP, the project will disturb 13.4 acres for construction of an unconventional gas well pad, two access roads, five freshwater storage tanks, a 2,770-foot natural gas pipeline and a 2,990foot freshwater pipeline.
U.S. Steel, responding to questions about the permitting delays, said it had no comment and would not be participating in or submitting testimony at the hearing. In previous stories about the gas well project, the steelmaker has said the project is an opportunity to control fuel costs and improve the competitiveness of its two Mon Valley Works steel mills.
Merrion initially plans to drill one well on a pad within the 145-year-old steel mill’s industrial footprint, but it could eventually drill a total of 18 wells there, each approximately 6,700 feet deep with horizontal laterals in the Marcellus shale formation extending almost 2 miles. Merrion’s corporate website also notes the possibility of drilling in the deeper Utica shale formation.
Merrion has oil and gas operations in 17 states, but it has never drilled a horizontal shale gas well, often referred to as an “unconventional well,” in any of them and has drilled no other wells in Pennsylvania.
Stacey Simon, the East Pittsburgh council member who introduced the motion to rescind Merrion’s conditional use permit in January,
testified that it had expired because the company “hadn’t done anything.”
“We saw no ‘commencement of use.’ That’s the measure, not activity,” said Ms. Simon, who noted that, at the time of the January vote, the company had not corrected any of the 12 DEP deficiency notices or applied to the municipality for highway and driveway use permits.
Edith Abeyta, a leader in the local North Braddock Residents for Our Future organization, testified that she lives about three-quarters of a mile from the proposed well pad site and has observed no construction there.
In a phone interview prior to the hearing, Ms. Abeyta said Merrion didn’t attempt to renew its zoning permit as required and didn’t appeal borough council’s revocation of the permit within the 30day appeal period.
Ms. Abeyta said approximately 21,000 people live within a 2-mile radius of the proposed well site, located between Braddock Avenue and Turtle Creek on land that straddles the North Versailles-East Pittsburgh border. Some residents of North Braddock live closer to the proposed well pad than do residents of the two communities where the wells would be located.
She said generations of Mon Valley residents have lived with unhealthy emissions from the steel industry’s smokestacks, and the well drilling proposal adds another emissions source to an already polluted and unhealthy environment.
“Our major concerns are that our health is already overtaxed. We have high asthma rates, chronic lifetime diseases, increased susceptibility to COVID-19 and other viruses,” Ms. Abeyta said. “Putting an unconventional gas well on top of what people in the region have been dealing with for 120 years is just too much to ask.”