Suburban Pittsburgh (Westmoreland County)
From an Article by Reid Frazier, Allegheny Front, April 10, 2018
A dispute over a local law that opens up much of a Pittsburgh suburb to oil and gas drilling has made it to a Westmoreland County courtroom.
The citizens group ProtectPT is challenging Penn Township’s zoning ordinance, finalized in 2016, that allowed drilling in parts of the township zoned as “rural resource” areas.
These are typically open parts of the community, like farms and other sparsely populated areas. The community, about 20 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, contains a mix of planned suburban subdivisions and farmland.
The group is arguing that the ordinance deprives residents in more densely populated parts of the township their rights under the Pennsylvania Constitution to a clean environment.
The group wants the judge to limit fracking to a handful of industrial zones inside the township.
“We are saying this infringes on those rights because it pollutes the air, it pollutes the water through forcing chemicals into the earth and (by) polluting groundwater, as well as surface water for spills on the surface,” said Ann LeCuyer, of Trafford, Pa., which is part of the Penn-Trafford school district, and Protect PT’s project & outreach coordinator.
“There’s trucks, there’s the drill rigs, there’s the noise, all which would reduce not only our health but our enjoyment of our property,” she said.
The group is basing its lawsuit on the state’s Environmental Rights Amendment, Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which declares that “the people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.”
The township has called its law a “reasonable” ordinance that balances drilling with environmental protection.
Among the witnesses called by the plaintiffs was Cornell University professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Anthony Ingraffea. He testified that the process of fracking a well requires several pieces of industrial equipment, all of which can produce harmful emissions.
“These are all very heavy operations typically run by diesel equipment,” Ingraffea told Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas Judge Harry F. Smail Jr. “All emissions associated with large diesel engine operations would be occurring.”
Other witnesses scheduled to testify for the plaintiffs were Pittsburgh-based pediatrician Ned Ketyer, and Tom Daniels, a land use expert from the University of Pennsylvania.
Testimony will continue this week, and is expected to resume in June.
The township has also sparred with a drilling company seeking to operate inside its borders. After the township denied an application from Apex Energy to drill there in 2016, the company sued the township for $300 million in damages. The two sides settled, with the township agreeing to drilling permits in exchange for provisions like air and sound monitoring.
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This story is a partnership with StateImpact Pennsylvania, a collaboration among The Allegheny Front, WESA, WITF and WHYY.
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The risk of fracking is hitting close to home
Letter to Editor, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, April 23, 2018
To be a Pittsburgher is to be proud not only of the role our region played in building this nation, but also of how we have emerged in the post-industrial economy. Our location in the Marcellus Shale has meant an increase in hydraulic fracturing, “fracking,” which has been shown to carry some risk. I am concerned that the failure of many local municipalities to update zoning ordinances to restrict the location of oil and gas operations will set back our progress and detrimentally affect our health.
Indiana Township recently approved a conditional use permit to “frack” eight gas wells in a residential zone in proximity to Fox Chapel Area and Deer Lakes schools, a popular park, a beloved summer day camp and Deer Creek — a trout stream and tributary to the Allegheny River. As a parent, pediatrician and allergist/immunologist, I worry about the threats fracking potentially poses to our air quality (already one of the worst in the nation in terms of particle pollution) and drinking water. City of Pittsburgh residents should be concerned that the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority sits downstream of the well pad.
I hope all residents of the region will take note of the dramatic increase in fracking activities and encourage their municipalities, including Indiana Township, to update zoning maps and ordinances to keep this industrial activity away from homes, schools, parks and drinking water sources.
TODD GREEN, M.D.
Fox Chapel, North Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/letters/2018/04/23/The-risk-of-fracking-is-hitting-close-to-home/stories/201804230006