Truck-staging area approved in North Strabane
North Strabane Township supervisors approved a second amendment Tuesday to the conditional use given to Range Resources for a well pad site. The amendment allows the company to construct a 180-by-240-foot truck-staging area on the Bier property for fracking operations occurring within the township’s four well pad sites: Bier, Jeffries, Martin and Randolph.
The staging area will be used to control truck traffic off of Route 519, including tankers that will haul fresh and recycled water used in hydraulic fracturing.
“If we don’t stage, one truck comes in and two minutes later, another truck trickles in,” said Greg Panseri, Range Resources water resources supervisor.
Panseri said the staging area would allow up to 10 trucks to access the site at a time. He estimated 10 to 15 water trucks per hour would access the site day and night over an approximate 25-day period. The company is required to provide signage and traffic flaggers during that time.
Robert Balogh, vice chairman, questioned the need for a vote.
“Is this necessary? We’ve already approved the wells,” Balogh said. “What authority do we have to regulate their operations?”
Township solicitor Gary Sweat and township manager Frank Siffrinn said the issue had to be voted upon because it was a separate condition.
“The township was under the belief water would be supplied by pipeline. Trucking is a new issue,” Sweat said.
Panseri said the plan is to use trucks if the water could not be pumped to other sites through the pipeline. Two water corrals with a capacity of 1.68 million gallons with pumps directing water from Pennsylvania American Water lines previously were approved by the board.
Hugh White, Range Resources corporate security manager, said that a maximum of 50 trucks would use the staging area at one time. He said the estimate does not include normal daily operations but considers problems or special circumstances.
The Bier well site, approved in June 2014 as the township’s first Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling operation, is located on a 140-acre property owned by Albert and Scott Bier, owners of A&S Landscaping.
Chairman Brian Spicer and Supervisor Harold Close voted against the amendment. Close said he wanted the approval to be limited to the Bier site only.
In other business, the board approved a conditional use application by Rice Drilling to drill and install a natural gas well site off Munce Road on properties owned by William and Cathi Jo Beitler of Washington and Samuel and Beverly Minor of Eighty Four. The approval includes 18 conditions.
Supervisors also approved a Century Equities preliminary site plan of two proposed hotels, a restaurant and retail strip center on 8.7 acres of industrial-zoned property at the intersection of Morganza Road and Curry Avenue.