Nov 19, 2014 3 min read

McMURRAY – Peters Township Council is working on an update of its zoning ordinances to allow natural gas drilling in certain areas, and Tuesday had a preliminary discussion with the planning commission and township officials ahead of a January public hearing.

There was a consensus on at least one thing: Council should remove the mineral extraction overlay districts, which place industrial zoning within residential areas.

“We can’t have the MEODs anymore. Since the Act 13 ruling, you can’t have industrial operations going on in a residential area,” manager Michael Silvestri said. Act 13 is the state’s oil and gas drilling law, under which local zoning regulations were upheld after a court fight.

Silvestri presented at the joint meeting several options for consideration, including rezoning agricultural or the least densely populated areas with different guidelines, amending ordinances to place environmental regulation requirements on any applicant, as well as creating entirely new industrial districts in outlying areas of the township.

“This map shows what’s feasible just based on the 1,000 feet setback criteria,” Silvestri said, “and these areas have parcels over 40 acres that have access to state roads.” The map isolated areas along East McMurray Road, on the border with Union Township, along Venetia Road, as well as parcels near the border of Cecil Township.

“We’re a lot more dense than the rest of the county, with 1,000 residents per square mile, so it’s going to be difficult. We need to get input from the public to develop a rational, fair and environmentally sound plan to protect the township from inevitable lawsuits,” he said.

Silvestri said he’s not pushing for drilling in the township, but that there needs to be a “reasonable means” for interested parties to apply for permits to extract resources in the township, which is according to the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code.

“The issue is not just any particular avenue’s legal hurdles, but also getting residents agreeing (to future easements) from developers and gas companies so they can pipeline it out of the township,” solicitor John Smith said.

Councilman David Ball said whatever language is used in future ordinances shouldn’t be too specific.

“We have to stop talking about zoning just to gas drilling … it’s going to get us in legal trouble if anyone subpoenas these slides with ‘gas drilling’ all over them. We have to look to provide (zoning) for industrial usage at large, because if someone comes in saying they want to put in a garbage dump and we tell them they can’t because it’s already zoned for a specific reason, we’re going to have a constitutional issue on our hands,” Ball said.

Regulations put upon conditional use applicants – like drilling companies – cannot be too specific, either. When asked if there could be provisions preventing open-air waste water impoundments, Smith said the township couldn’t enforce it.

“We can’t put that burden on operators under current law. We can’t tell them how to do business,” he said.

Council has yet to schedule a specific date for a public hearing on the issue.