Jan 26, 2018 4 min read

An attorney representing a group of people who live in or near Mt. Pleasant Township is claiming portions of a proposed new zoning ordinance related to oil and gas development would be “violative of the right of the residents” of the township and “ripe for a validity challenge” if enacted.

Attorney Jeffrey Ries told officials his clients were “concerned for air issues, noise, truck traffic, school safety and water quality” in a letter to township officials Wednesday ahead of their meeting and said their “questions went unanswered and their concerns unalleviated” during earlier proceedings before the planning commission or supervisors.

Supervisors voted to delay a decision on the proposal and re-advertise it for possible consideration at the Feb. 28 meeting for reasons unrelated to issues raised in Ries’ letter.

Township solicitor Tom McDermott said he wanted the additional time to make some formatting changes to the proposal but expected “no changes, substantively” to it.

He said he’d “breezed through” the letter and would “digest it” but didn’t comment on specifics. Supervisors Chairman Gary Farner said he hadn’t read it.

Ries’ six-page letter called natural gas extraction an “industrial activity (that) should be kept away from where residents live or congregate” and cited an array of alleged problems with the zoning ordinance, including it doesn’t address the siting of pig launching and receiving facilities – above-ground stations that allow operators to clear or inspect a section of pipeline by sending a cylindrical device known as a “pig” through a section of pipeline.

“Gas from numerous wells flow through these facilities, and the gas is vented and/or flared, releasing volatile organic compounds into the air,” it states. “The township’s proposed ordinance does not address this health and safety issue.”

Ries’ letter said some of his clients live “in close proximity to” a MarkWest pigging facility on Fort Cherry Road and cited a report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry based on air testing and other information gathered by the federal Environmental Protection Agency during the course of an investigation there.

ATSDR’s report showed “the potential exists for pig launching activities to result in unhealthy exposures in adjacent residential locations,” according to the letter, which also accused officials of “failing to address these health and safety concerns.”

MarkWest is owned by MPLX, a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corp. Marathon spokesman Jamal Kheiry said in an email that “data from that location and that of other locations in the area – including data generated as part of a review of launcher and receiver operations initiated by the U.S. EPA, as well as data from sites monitored in real time by ATSDR – conclusively demonstrate that there is not a public health or environmental concern associated with these operations.”

Among other concerns, Ries also pointed to “traffic-control sites” where trucks would be able to stop or assemble “during their course of travel to an oil and gas development” under the proposed zoning changes. Ries argued this provision may lead to trucks violating restrictions on diesel idling, as well as “bring the nuisance repeatedly to the same sites.”

The new provisions would also allow “tank pads” for above-ground fluid storage containers as new development or on existing well pads. Ries called those provisions “concerning and problematic. He argued operators would need a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection if they use those facilities to process wastewater.

“These facilities belong in an industrial zoned area and not in agricultural or residential,” his letter continued.

Ries didn’t attend the meeting. In his letter, he urged officials to review ATSDR’s research, a state Supreme Court decision which last year broadened the interpretation of a section of the state constitution known as the Environmental Rights Amendment and the Washington County, among other materials, before taking action on the proposal.

One of Ries’ clients, Cathy Lodge of Robinson Township, asked McDermott about the decision to table the proposal during a short discussion following the vote.

“I was hopeful that you would consider adding some more protective measures for residents” she said of the proposal.

McDermott said the board had already decided what would be in the ordinance and pointed to the review process that also included the planning commission.

“This is simply a logistical recommendation on my part,” he added.