Letter to the Editor: Resident Sounds Off on PTMSA's Gas Drilling Amendment

The PTMSA Home Rule Charter Amendment, which will be presented to voters on Election Day, is an overzealous and misguided attempt to make a public statement about gas drilling. Due to its explicit ban on drilling and removal of corporate rights in PT, the amendment will ultimately harm PT and lead to court awarded unregulated drilling. 

The petition for the amendment was circulated a few months ago when it became clear to a small group of residents in PTMSA that PT’s Council would not adopt an ordinance banning drilling. For almost a year, this group aggressively petitioned Council for an ordinance banning drilling. Council consistently declined, citing the legal restrictions in PA’s Oil & Gas Act, the Municipal Planning Code, and PA’s Home Rule Charter. 

Council made it clear that passing any kind of drilling ban, whether by ordinance or voter approved amendment, would be illegal and quickly challenged and overruled in court. Council based this opinion on numerous precedent cases, legal opinions, the Blaine Township case, conferences with other municipalities in PA, and the advice of our town solicitor. 

In August, Council passed a strict but legally defensible mineral extraction ordinance, which permits drilling on a conditional use basis on 40 acre lots on main or arterial roads. The conditional use process requires a public hearing, and the ordinance sets requirements for water and soil testing, bonding, and noise control. This ordinance was the result of 1 ½ years of work, consultations and public hearings, research, and conferences with private attorneys hired by some PT residents.

The amendment to the Home Rule Charter takes three actions which will harm PT: #1) it expressly bans gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in PT, in violation of the Act, Code and Charter cited above; #2) it removes constitutional rights from corporations in PT, in violation of the PA and U.S. Constitutions; and #3) it nullifies our current ordinance. These 3 actions are effective immediately upon the amendment’s approval by voters.

Violating state and federal law, and destroying a well constructed ordinance, is not the way to make a public statement. Nor is it the way to effect legislative change. There is much legal precedent to support the numerous legal and non legal opinions that this amendment will be successfully challenged in court. There is no legal precedent which supports violating the O&G Act or the U.S. Constitution.  

The amendment’s challengers will be leaseholding residents and leaseholding drillers. Leaseholding residents will have grounds to sue PT for monetary damages based on “takings claims”. Leaseholding drillers will have grounds to sue PT for site specific relief based on violations of the O&G Act, and the state and U.S. Constitution. 

When leaseholders win, the court awards them money. When drillers win, the court awards them site specific relief. This means the suing drillers are permitted to drill anywhere in PT where they have valid leases, without following any local ordinance provisions (ours will have been nullified anyway). This is akin to unregulated drilling, since the drillers will only have to comply with the archaic and industry partial provisions of the O&G Act. 

Where will this money come from? PT’s taxpayers. Where will the land be located? Anywhere in PT where residents have leases. Setback requirements?  None other than the 200ft rig-to-building entrance restriction in the Act. Any required pre and post water and soil testing? None other than the Act. And the list goes on.

I am sympathetic to the argument that drilling should not occur in residential areas. However,  PT does not have enough industrially zoned areas in which to restrict drilling. If PT restricted drilling to the few parcels of industrial land, PT could be successfully sued for “defacto” exclusion much like the Range Resources and South Fayette current situation.

PT’s current ordinance, which requires a minimum of 40+ acres on arterial and main roadways, approved through the conditional use process, does far more to protect the residential character of PT than the proposed amendment ever will.  It would be a travesty to see the amendment approved at ballot, the current ordinance immediately nullified, and then witness successful legal challenges and harmful court awards.

If anything will change the residential character of PT, approval of this amendment will. It will lead to more drilling rigs in PT than our ordinance. It will lead to millions of dollars saddled on the backs of taxpayers already facing possible tax increases (reassessment, high school construction referendum).

Cool heads must prevail. It is no longer the time for emotionally charged statements and arguments which avoid hard facts. Make your public statement about drilling by contacting your state and federal representatives. Make your public statement about drilling in PT by voting “no” on the amendment.

-Suzanne Kennedy, Venetia, PA

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