Posts Tagged ‘Township’

In continuing efforts to regulate the gas drilling industry in the face of limited Commonwealth regulations, local municipalities are passing ordinances designed to regulate gas drilling within township borders.  Many of the local ordinances are in the form of zoning regulations.  Gas industry representatives are watching these developments closely and are looking to the legislature for uniform statewide regulations.  The twelve lawyers at DLP continue to represent individuals injured in drilling rig accidents, gas industry truck accidents and other serious matters.

By Jeremy Boren, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, April 17, 2011

Rolling hills and wide-open meadows attracted JoAnne Wagner to Mt. Pleasant, a Washington County community about 25 miles from Pittsburgh. That was in 2005.

Today, the Marcellus shale gas boom has swept in more than 100 wells, pipelines, waste water ponds, trucks and bitter debates between those who profit from drilling leases and those who don’t.

The 35-square-mile township founded in 1788 is a study in the growing debate over whether state officials should empower municipalities to impose an “impact fee” on energy companies to compensate for tax money spent on attorney fees, police salaries, road work, inspections and other costs associated with hosting the drillers.

“There are so many impacts, and it’s so far-reaching,” said Wagner, 45, who does not oppose natural gas drilling.

“What’s going on and the way industry is behaving here is pitting neighbor against neighbor,” she said. “This community used to be tight-knit and not willing to grow. For years people didn’t have public water because people didn’t want development to come in.”

A car dealership, volunteer fire company, tavern and a few small shops break up the line of two-story homes along much of Route 50 in Hickory, Mt. Pleasant’s main drag. On a tree-lined drive near Fort Cherry School District’s campus, Wagner said her biggest concern is that natural gas extraction operations near the school that her two children attend could pollute the air. She said the township can’t afford air-monitoring equipment.

State law gives most municipalities two options to tax natural gas drilling companies as well as other businesses: property taxes if the firm owns the land, and earned-income taxes from workers if they live where they work.

Calculating the direct costs is difficult, said Timothy Kelsey, a professor of agricultural economics at Penn State University, who has studied shale-related costs and the industry’s tax revenue impact.

“In the long run, costs will become clear, but before that, how do you set (a fee) fairly?” Kelsey said.

The question could ultimately affect a municipality’s financial stability, say bond industry watchers.

It would be harmful if they can’t “keep up with needed infrastructure repairs or upgrades or cannot adequately fund other public services,” said Tom Kozlik, an analyst with financial services firm Janney Montgomery Scott of Philadelphia.

Many rural roads weren’t intended to accommodate heavy truck use, Kozlik noted in a March report.

Mt. Pleasant Police Chief Lou McQuillan said he received training to inspect and cite overweight trucks but there isn’t room in the township’s budget of roughly $1 million to buy a $10,000 scale.

He leaves the truck monitoring to state police. Three state officers spent nine-hour shifts Wednesday to Friday patrolling I-70 East and I-79 South in Washington County for overweight trucks. Police said the “predominant” source of inspections on I-79 were trucks from drilling sites.

During a crackdown March 14-15 known as “Operation FracNET,” state police focused on trucks carrying waste water from natural gas drilling sites.

In Allegheny, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties, state police conducted 194 truck inspections, placed 26 vehicles and one driver out of service and issued 72 traffic citations.

Statewide, police inspected 731 commercial trucks, took 131 of them out of service for violations and issued 421 citations. Faulty brakes and improper exterior lighting were the most common violations.

There are other concerns, McQuillan said. When fire erupted at 5:15 a.m. March 1 from a tank at a MarkWest Liberty Midstream Resources compressor station, McQuillan spent eight hours on scene.

He was the only one of the township’s three officers on duty.

“I can see what a burden this is, and we’re just one municipality,” Wagner said. “Now multiply that by all the municipalities in the state (with drilling).”

Newly elected Republican Gov. Tom Corbett said he recognizes the higher costs and is seeking a way to address them, though he has provided no specifics. He doesn’t want an “impact fee” to be routed through the Legislature where “it goes from one fund to the other,” he said.

Corbett opposes a statewide severance tax on gas extraction, but his openness to an impact fee prompted Democrats to criticize him for flip-flopping on a campaign promise not to raise taxes. Corbett’s staff has said the fee wouldn’t violate the governor’s pledge because municipalities, not the state, would impose the fee.

It could pay for more than just road repair, Corbett said.

“The impact can be schools — schools that are growing in that area. The impact can be to the social services network,” he said.

There are signs Marcellus shale drilling is benefiting portions of Pennsylvania’s economy.

Sales tax collections in Pennsylvania counties with 150 or more gas wells increased 11 percent from July 2007 to July 2010, according to the report from Kelsey, the professor. Counties with fewer than 150 wells saw a 3.1 percent decline; those with none had a 6.5 percent drop. The state average was a 3.7 percent decrease.

Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources in Cecil, said that’s an example of the “unprecedented economic impacts of shale gas development” in the state.

He noted an uptick this year in weekly wages in Washington County and an almost 50 percent increase in the number of Pennsylvania mining and logging industry jobs from 2007 to 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, has warned that if a tax or fee is too high, it could drive energy companies away and hurt job growth. It’s open to the concept of compensating municipalities.

“If there are incurred costs of local governments from the development of this industry, we certainly want to make those municipalities whole that are hosting this industry,” said Kathryn Klaber, president of the coalition.

Mary Dalbo, 87, of Cecil said she was eager to lease 370 acres in Cecil, Chartiers and Findlay to Range Resources. Her profits will pay for her four great-grandchildren to attend college.

“(Range) put better roads in than the ones that they destroyed,” said Dalbo, who opposes an impact fee and rules that limit landowners’ rights.

Donald Gennuso, manager of Cecil, said municipalities that host drilling operations bring some costs on themselves when they go beyond what the state requires to satisfy nervous residents who want more scrutiny of gas extraction plans.

Since 2009, Cecil has spent $60,000 on lawyer fees related to oil and gas issues.

“Lawyers are making all the trouble,” Dalbo said. “… Why can’t the township supervisors think for themselves?”

Dencil Backus, 64, of Mt. Pleasant keeps close watch on a drilling site 200 feet from the edge of his rolling fields. A wild-game camera he set up in 2009 snaps photos every hour; he has saved thousands.

If a severance tax isn’t possible, a local fee on drillers might suffice, he said. He’s mainly concerned that shale fracturing will contaminate a spring that supplies water to the home he shares with his wife, Patricia.

“It doesn’t matter how it gets there, if it gets into the aquifer and the water, we’re dead,” he said.

Read more: Drilling economics divides struggling communities – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_732702.html#ixzz1OSrEvEgL

Read more: Drilling economics divides struggling communities – Pittsburgh Tribune-Reviewhttp://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_732702.html#ixzz1OSrC2mw2

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11097/1137723-503.stm#ixzz1OSX5cpK9

MATT HUGHES [email protected]

HANOVER TWP. – Audience members asked a lot of questions at Tuesday’s meeting of the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority Board meeting, but few walked away with the answers they sought.

The board has for the past 18 months been studying the feasibility of opening an additional facility to treat flow-back water produced by hydraulic fracturing, the process used by natural gas drillers to unlock gas trapped in shale formations.

About 50 packed the meeting room at the authority to comment on the project, which would be built on sanitary authority property in the Lyndwood section of the township.

They voiced concerns about air and noise pollution, the number of trucks that would visit the facility daily, chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive materials in the flowback water, and contamination of the Susquehanna River in the event of an accident.

Chairman James Hankey said the board is still conducting its study and considering different types of facility and different methods of bringing water there for treatment, and as such did not have the answers to many questions asked.

There are no concrete plans or timeline in place for the project, the board said.

When asked by audience members, Hankey responded he could not say if water treated by the facility would contain hazardous or radioactive chemicals, what would be done with sediment removed from treated water, how many trucks would be needed to bring water to the plant daily and what would happen if there were a chemical spill at the site or if the site were flooded.

The crowd grew most impassioned when Hankey said the board was asked to look into the possibility of building the treatment facility.

When asked by whom, Hankey stated “I’m not sure,” prompting cries of “ah, come on, you know,” “pathetic,” and the names of natural gas drilling companies.

Township residents also questioned why the sanitary authority wants to build the facility in Hanover rather than in the northern tier, where gas drilling is much more prevalent.

“Can’t you build a plant closer to where this activity is actually going on?” asked Frank Marra of Hanover Township. “We don’t get the benefit of the leased property up there, and we want to get the tail end of it?”

Hankey said profits raised by the facility could reduce frequency and severity of sewer fees Wyoming Valley property owners pay.

After the meeting, board members referred questions to John Minora, spokesman for Pennsylvania Northeast Aqua Resources, the authority’s consultant.

Minora said much of the water produced from Pennsylvania shale gas wells is currently being trucked to Ohio and West Virginia for treatment and disposal.

“We’re closer,” Minora said. “We’re reducing truck traffic, we’re reducing wear and tear on the roads and we’re reducing pollution.”

Minora added that existing infrastructure at the sanitary authority, including unused tanks that could be used to store treated water and excess heat currently being wasted by the authority, make the site an attractive one.

Minora said the authority is considering three methods of bringing water to the proposed facility: tanker trucks, rail transport, and piping in water from staging areas away from residential areas.

“We want to do it in a way that impacts on the community as minimally as possible,” he said.

Hankey said the authority would consider all scientific information the public submitted.

Members of the audience submitted a draft plan of the recently begun federal Environmental Protection Agency study of hydraulic fracturing’s effect on water supplies recently, a scientific article about the health risks posed by chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and the Pennsylvania State Police’s FracNET enforcement effort, which targets trucks hauling water for gas drillers.

Tom Jiunta of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition also submitted a list of more than 40 questions about the project he hopes the authority will answer.

“I think their lack of transparency had the crowd quite perturbed,” Jiunta said of the board after the meeting.

“I think they need to be more forthcoming. … They need to go above and beyond to show that their decisions are science-based, not profit-based. People in Luzerne County demand accountability.”

Copyright: Times Leader

BILL O’BOYLE [email protected]

WILKES-BARRE – Nearly 100 people came to ask questions of their legislators and hear their answers, but time was not on their side.

Two state senators and six state representatives formed a panel at the annual Legislative Breakfast sponsored by the Wilkes-Barre Area League of Women Voters held Saturday morning in the Sheehy-Farmer Campus Center at King’s College.

Ronald and Marie Duclos of Mountaintop wanted to hear about Marcellus Shale and they heard plenty.

“We often wonder about what happened in Dimock Township,” Marie said. “Did the water problem ever get resolved? I know people will get paid, but is the water safe?”

Her husband said he heard a lot of topics discussed during the two hour event, but . . .

“I didn’t hear a lot of solutions to the problems facing us,” he said. “Overall I thought it was good.”

Attending the event were state Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township; state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township; and state Reps. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre; Mike Carroll, D-Avoca; Tarah Toohil, R-Butler Township; Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston; Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake; and Gerald Mullery, D-Newport Township.

The legislators agreed that except for the state budget and its $4 billion deficit, Marcellus Shale is the next most important issue facing the state. All favor a severance tax, but they disagree on where the money generated should go. They don’t feel the revenue should be applied to the state budget – they feel the local communities should receive the revenue to offset anticipated costs associated with the gas drilling industry.

“Our towns need protection,” Mundy said. “For example, there’s a pressure station next to the Dallas High School. This could explode; there couldn’t be a worse location for this. It’s ludicrous. We have to hold people’s feet to the fire and toughen our regulations.”

Pension reform was discussed at length. Yudichak said the economy is just starting to come out of a two-year recession, but he noted that it won’t be enough to bring the pension funds back.

“Small towns just can’t afford to pay for services because of the pension obligations,” he said.

Mullery said the situation is dire and “all options have to be on the table.” Pashinski agreed, saying the benefits were “too rich to be able to sustain themselves.”

“Let’s bring some financial wizards to the table,” he said.

Toohil said the pension problem isn’t going away and can’t be ignored.

“These are unfunded liabilities,” she said. “There’s no money to fund the promises that were made.”

Carroll said retirees benefits are “out of the equation.” He said the problem has to be addressed with current and future employees.

The legislators agreed that free health care clinics deserve funding, but none could say where that funding would come from.

“Good luck,” Mundy offered to the suggestion. “The fact is we have an enormous budget deficit. I do not foresee the state being able to pick up that slack.”

Pashinski said it’s time to examine why health care costs “increase by double digits each year.”

“We’ve done nothing to fix the reasons why health care rates are through the roof,” he said.

Toohil said it’s “unacceptable” that people have to be without health care.

Carroll said if jobs aren’t created and unemployment continues to rise, “we will need a lot more free clinics.”

Baker said the $4 billion deficit looms large over the state and needs to be resolved. She said she is anxious to hear Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget address on March 8.

Boback said the key is job creation, prompting Yudichak to remark, “the greatest social program you can introduce is a job.”

Mundy was the last to speak and she said the answer is not reducing the size of the state legislature or making legislators part-time employees. She said that neither would benefit constituents.

“All of my work starts with you,” she said. “Constituent service is my top priority.”

Fred Murray of Jackson Township said he got a lot out of the session.

“Based on what I listened to, I enjoyed it,” he said. “They answered the questions; now they have to get the work done.”

Copyright: Times Leader

Board chairman says damage will be assessed and Encana will reimburse municipality.

By CAMILLE FIOTI Times Leader Correspondent

LEHMAN TWP. — Questions arose at Monday’s Board of Supervisors meeting regarding the wear and tear of the township roads caused by Encana Gas & Oil’s huge rigs now that the company has ceased operations at two Marcellus Shale gas drill sites in the region.

Board Chairman Dave Sutton told the residents the township engineer will tour the roads with Encana’s engineers to assess damage.

“They are reimbursing the township for repairs,” said Sutton. Patching will be done first, he said, followed by permanent repairs performed by the company’s contractor.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the final reading of the 2011 budget. There will be no tax increases in the $2,122,379 spending plan. The current millage is 1.25. A mill is a $1 tax on every $1,000 of assessed property value.

• Voted to enter into an agreement with four other municipalities in the Back Mountain Community Partnership to split the cost and use of a speed trailer. The device, which will cost around $5,000 to $6,000, flashes a digital readout of motorists’ speed. The partnership consists of the townships of Dallas, Franklin, Jackson, Kingston and Lehman, as well as Dallas Borough, but Franklin Township is not involved in this project.

• Voted to implore state legislators to allow the township to increase the fee it charges to provide accident reports. The current fee is capped at $15. “Some of these (reports) take hours and hours to do and we’re only allowed to charge $15 for certified copies,” said Supervisor Ray Iwanoski.

• Voted to apply for a grant to conduct an aquifer study.

• Voted to give authority to the township’s emergency management coordinator to work in conjunction with the EMS coordinators of Dallas Borough and Jackson Township in the event of an emergency.

• Announced that renovation work on the municipal building will begin soon. A $120,000 federal grant through the state Department of Environmental Protection will be used to make the building more energy efficient.

Also, Supervisor Doug Ide announced the Back Mountain Community Partnership will be participating in a county storm water conservation program that will provide rain barrels to residents to collect runoff to water gardens and lawns.

Ide added the township may be the host municipality for the program, which will instruct residents how to set up their own rain-water collection system. More information about the program will be announced in February or March.

Copyright: Times Leader

LEHMAN TWP. — Questions arose at Monday’s Board of Supervisors meeting regarding the wear and tear of the township roads caused by Encana Gas & Oil’s huge rigs now that the company has ceased operations at two Marcellus Shale gas drill sites in the region.

Board Chairman Dave Sutton told the residents the township engineer will tour the roads with Encana’s engineers to assess damage.

“They are reimbursing the township for repairs,” said Sutton. Patching will be done first, he said, followed by permanent repairs performed by the company’s contractor.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the final reading of the 2011 budget. There will be no tax increases in the $2,122,379 spending plan. The current millage is 1.25. A mill is a $1 tax on every $1,000 of assessed property value.

• Voted to enter into an agreement with four other municipalities in the Back Mountain Community Partnership to split the cost and use of a speed trailer. The device, which will cost around $5,000 to $6,000, flashes a digital readout of motorists’ speed.

• Voted to implore state legislators to allow the township to increase the fee it charges to provide accident reports. The current fee is capped at $15. • Voted to apply for a grant to conduct an aquifer study.

• Voted to give authority to the township’s emergency management coordinator to work in conjunction with the EMS coordinators of Dallas Borough and Jackson Township in the event of an emergency.

• Announced that renovation work on the municipal building will begin soon. A $120,000 federal grant through the state Department of Environmental Protection will be used to make the building more energy efficient. Also, Supervisor Doug Ide announced the Back Mountain Community Partnership will be participating in a county storm water conservation program that will provide rain barrels to residents to collect runoff to water gardens and lawns.

Ide added the township may be the host municipality for the program, which will instruct residents how to set up their own rain-water collection system. More information about the program will be announced in February or March.

Copyright: Times Leader

The transaction establishes 25-year arrangement between the two companies.

By Andrew M. Seder [email protected]
Times Leader Staff Writer

Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., which operates several natural gas well sites in Susquehanna County, has announced an agreement to sell its Pennsylvania midstream to Williams Field Services Company, LLC, a subsidiary of Williams Partners L.P.

The deal, which could be finalized in December, calls for Cabot to sell approximately 75 miles of gas gathering pipelines and two existing compressor stations that the company has installed and constructed over the last three years.

The transaction also establishes a 25-year firm gathering arrangement between Cabot and Williams that calls for Williams, in the next two years, to:

• Complete construction of a 32-mile 24-inch high pressure pipeline to the Transco pipeline in Luzerne County from Cabot’s Lathrop Station in Springville Township, Susquehanna County;

• Build about 65 miles of various 16- to 24-inch trunk lines in Susquehanna County;

• Construct two additional compressor stations with a total of 40,000 horsepower.

During the term of the 25-year agreement, Williams also will connect all Cabot drilling program wells with 8-inch and 10-inch gathering lines and deliver Cabot production to five interstate pipeline delivery points.

The deal is worth about $150 million and, in addition, Williams Partners added more than $150 million of expansion capital to fund the 2011 construction phase of additional gathering assets, including compression and dehydration, which will significantly augment the acquired assets, according to a Williams press release.

“This additional expansion in the Marcellus Shale is an ideal growth opportunity for Williams Partners,” said Alan Armstrong, senior vice president of Williams Partners’ midstream business. “We have the opportunity to serve another one of the biggest producers in the Marcellus with the type of large-scale solutions required for Cabot’s rapidly expanding production.

Williams, an Oklahoma-based natural gas transportation company, has a track record that was attractive to Cabot.

“With the exceptional well success we have seen in our Marcellus operations, we needed to adjust the way we thought about infrastructure and take-away capacity going forward,” said Dan O. Dinges, Cabot’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Williams Partners L.P. is one of the premier mid-stream providers that has the capabilities to help us make a significant step change in the way we develop this resource and execute our program.”

Cabot, based in Houston, Texas, has been in the news, both national and local, the past two years because of problems with well water supplies in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County.

A state board last week approved funding the construction of a nearly $12 million water line from Montrose to the homes of families whose water wells were allegedly contaminated by natural gas drilling in Susquehanna County.

The board of PENNVEST – the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority – voted 9-2, to award an $11.6 million grant and a $172,682 loan to Pennsylvania American Water Co. for more than 12 miles of transmission and distribution lines to serve Dimock Township residents whose wells were affected by methane gas.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has said defective casings on at least three of Cabot’s wells allowed gas to pollute the groundwater. The department fined Cabot more than $240,000 and ordered it to clean up the pollution. Cabot has denied any wrongdoing and is fighting the order.

Copyright: Times Leader

By Jennifer Micale

Elmira Gazette

March 12, 2010

A 31-year-old worker died Thursday after he fell 20 feet off a natural gas rig in Towanda Township, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

At around 5:30 p.m., Greg Allen Henry, of Athens, Tennessee, was working on a Nomac Drilling site off Plank Road, two miles from Towanda, Pa.

He was attempting to dislodge a handrail while the drilling unit was being moved to another hole on the drilling pad, police said. The handrail gave way and Henry fell 20 feet, suffering a severe head injury. He was pronounced dead at the scene by Bradford County Coroner Thomas Carman. An autopsy will be conducted at a later date, police said.

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