Aug 3, 2017 3 min read

Smith Township supervisors on Wednesday continued a hearing on MarkWest Energy’s plans to build a natural-gas processing plant.

MarkWest representatives and outside consultants outlined plans for the project, known as the Harmon Creek Complex, during a more than three-hour session. The hearing will resume at 6 p.m. Sept. 7.

“The main reason (for the delay) is the township does not want to go forward with a final ruling with the conditional-use request until the road issues have been resolved by written agreement,” said township solicitor Gary Sweat.

The new facility would be off Point Pleasant Road near Energy Tranfer Partners’ Revolution cryogenic plant.

Truck traffic to and from the Revolution site has drawn compaints from residents in recent months. An ETP spokeswoman said in an email that the company is “working to address those concerns in a safe and efficient manner.”

Sweat said supervisors and the township engineer would meet with MarkWest representatives later this month to determine what improvements the township would require for nearby Point Pleasant and Creek roads as part of the project.

Once those are finalized, he said the township would consider the company’s grading permit, which would allow the company to begin site work ahead of the township’s decision on the conditional-use application.

Plans MarkWest representatives outlined Wednesday call for construction to begin this month and continue until April.

Following the hearing, Kristy Budavich of MarkWest said the company’s timeline “depends on their decision at the end of the day, and we’re here to adhere to everything the township is asking us to do and abide by the ordinance.”

The plans MarkWest submitted to the township include four cryogenic units and two de-ethanizers, but representatives stressed the company’s current plans are to build half of that – two cryogenic units and one de-ethanizer.

MarkWest spokesman Rob McHale said the company has “no plans on the books” to reach that full build-out.

“We simply presented the total maximum capacity that the site could handle in the interest of transparency,” he said.

Sweat asked attorney Jeffrey Ries, who represents Mike and Trina Tokarski, a husband and wife who live next to the proposed Harmon Creek site, and environmental advocacy groups Earthworks and the Clean Air Council to submit a list of proposed conditions the township could place on the application.

Ries said one of the conditions he would recommend is a requirement that MarkWest go through a conditional-use process to expand its capacity at the site.

“The three of you are supervisors tonight, but you may or may not (be), depending on the next election, and the way your ordinance reads, they don’t necessarily have to submit another application to come back to increase,” Ries said. “It could be vastly different, and again, it could be just waved through without the residents having an opportunity to come back here and say anything about that proposed facility, the effect it may have on them.”