Appellate panel gives mixed ruling on Cecil compressor station
A state appellate court struck down some of the conditions Cecil Township zoning officials imposed on a compressor station that MarkWest Energy proposed building.
A panel of the Commonwealth Court found in a 2-1 decision filed Friday that many of the conditions the township zoning hearing board imposed on MarkWest’s permission for the facility were “unreasonable and, therefore, are an abuse of the board’s discretion.” The court affirmed other conditions.
In an order authored by Judge Anne Covey, the Commonwealth Court panel threw out most of the 26 conditions the board put on the special exception it granted for the facility in 2015.
MarkWest’s current plans weren’t immediately clear. Jamal Keiry, a spokesman for Marathon Petroleum Corp. – whose spinoff MPLX bought MarkWest in 2015 – said in an email “we don’t typically comment on litigation matters or provide specifics regarding construction plans.”
Christopher Voltz, solicitor for the zoning hearing board, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.
The Commonwealth Court ruling left some or all of seven of the board’s conditions in place. Those include a requirement that MarkWest provide the township with a spill prevention and control plan, add emission controls, provide on-site training for first responders and enclose the facility in a chain-link fence.
The panel found other conditions exceeded the board’s authority, including a requirement that MarkWest have a third-party consultant test springs and wells within 1,500 feet before starting construction.
It also threw out a requirement that a third party perform baseline air testing at the site and then test every year thereafter, and another that MarkWest use electric instead of natural gas-fired engines.
Prior to the 2015 approval, the board denied the application MarkWest first submitted in late 2010. That move sparked a land-use appeal that wound up before Commonwealth Court. In 2014, that court reversed the board’s decision and remanded it to the zoning board, with instructions to render approval, subject to any conditions needed to ensure the project conforms to the local land-use ordinance.
MarkWest filed a second land-use appeal following the board’s 2015 decision. Washington County Judge John F. DiSalle denied that appeal in October 2016, ruling that all of the zoning board’s conditions were “reasonable and supported by the record,” prompting MarkWest to take the case to Commonwealth Court.
In a concurring and dissenting opinion filed Friday, Judge Patricia McCullough said she agreed with DiSalle’s opinion.
She said the zoning board’s conditions not only were within the board’s authority, “but would also serve to alleviate the burden and standard of proof issues with which objecting property owners and gas companies have been confronted in this industry.”
“For instance,” McCullough added, “by requiring the gas company to test water samples prior to drilling, it would enhance the respective company’s or property owners’ assertion that the drilling did or did not have a negative impact on same and the degree to which it did or did not.”