Sunday, April 14, 2013
As the Marcellus Shale industry expands in western Pennsylvania—and individual property owners start to benefit—issues often become controversial, especially when it comes to the environment.
Marcellus Shale is here to stay. Like its natural resource predecessors—coal deep mining and strip mining, natural gas and oil wells, and logging—Marcellus Shale drilling brings jobs and a source of energy for businesses and consumers. Like its predessors, Marcellus Shale drilling also brings and will most likely leave behind environmental concerns. Today, there's mine insurance today for those who own homes and businesses above areas that were mined for coal 100 or more years ago. Reclamation efforts were mandated in 1977 to restore areas destroyed by strip mining and why there's always a danger of an oil or gas well fire or leak into waterways. Reforestation replaces trees lost to the logging industry. Already, Marcellus Shale has raised…
Monday, October 15, 2012
Payment set for Cranberry is $75,405.53.
Gov. Tom Corbett on Monday announced that Act 13 has generated more than $204.2 million through the new impact fee. Most of this money will be distributed directly to local communities across the state—except for in the case of Cecil Township, Mount Pleasant, Robinson and South Fayette. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that those communities will have their share of the local impact fee witheld until their ordinances governing drilling have been reviewed by the state and deemed in compliance with Act 13. In all four instances, residents lobbied the Public Utilities Commission to review those ordinances. In addition, Range Resources also filed a request for South Fayette's ordinance to be reviewed. Corbett and the Pennsylvania Public …
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Several groups filed briefs in support of the group of communities, medical doctor and nonprofit that have challenged Act 13.
A group of environmental and community planning organizations, as well as government entities, filed a series of Amicus Briefs with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court today in support of communities’ rights to making zoning decisions about Marcellus Shale play within their borders. The groups—including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association, the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs, the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, the Pittsburgh City Council, Mountain Watershed Association, and Earthjustice—filed in support of a Commonwealth Court decision that found portions of Act 13 unconstitutional. The groups filing today join a broad spectrum of entities from …
Thursday, September 6, 2012
The request to deny the motion to intervene in an appeal of Act 13 by two of the state's top Republican leaders was filed Wednesday by the challengers to the law.
Attorneys for a cluster of communities, medical doctor and nonprofit challenging Pennsylvania's new law governing Marcellus Shale play on Wednesday asked the state Supreme Court to deny the request of two top state Republican leaders to intervene in an appeal of Act 13. State Senator Pro Temore Joe Scarnati and state Leader of the House Rep. Samuel H. Smith made the request to intervene in the appeal, which was filed a day after the Commonwealth Court ruled that portions of the new law dealing with zoning was unconstitutional last month. In its motion, attorneys for the Act 13 challengers, which include the communities of Cecil and Peters townships, said Scarnati and Smith's request should be denied for several reasons—including the fact …
Friday, August 17, 2012
A caveat in state law had lawyers arguing in Commonwealth Court Wednesday over a legal technicality that left Act 13 provisions in effect despite an earlier ruling indicating they were unconstitutional.
Cecil attorney John Smith said Thursday that 99 out of 100 municipalities in Pennsylvania might not have realized it, but despite a Commonwealth Court ruling that struck down portions of Act 13—the state’s new Marcellus Shale law—as unconstitutional July 26, the provisions were still technically in effect the next day. That’s because of a caveat in state law dictating that the decisions of a lower court in which the state is a defendant are stayed until an appeal is hashed out. The state appealed the ruling July 27. That’s why Smith said he travelled to Harrisburg to argue that the Commonwealth Court reinstate its order—telling the judge that it would cause “chaos” at the municipal level and give officials a no-win scenario if the law was …
Saturday, August 4, 2012
'The residential and commercial growth of Pennsylvania municipalities is currently hampered if not practically halted during the pendency of this court’s decision,” the court filing read.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection and the Public Utilities Commission last week asked the state Supreme Court to consider an expedited hearing for its appeal of a Commonwealth Court ruling that struck down the zoning portions of the Keystone State’s new Marcellus Shale law. On Friday, attorneys for the cluster of communities—including Cecil and Peters townships—a medical doctor and a nonprofit that filed the challenge to Act 13 that spawned the ruling have joined the state in its request—but not for the same reasons. “The inherent uncertainty of this court’s pending determination for municipalities and local officials and municipalities and local officials to perform any effective land-use planning,” attorneys said in …
Friday, August 3, 2012
With the repeal of the Act 13 bill, supervisors were able to reject their previous amendment.
In a unanimous vote, the Cranberry Board of Supervisors rejected the proposed amendment to the township’s current zoning laws for oil and gas companies. The point of the now unneeded amendment was to fit the mold the Gov. Tom Corbett-sponsored Act 13. The Commonwealth Court recently ruled portions of the bill as unconstitutional. Act 13 would have made mandatory statewide regulations regarding zoning for drilling in the Marcellus Shale. All townships and municipalities would have to follow the new rules or be subject to loss of impact fee revenues. “When Act 13 passed it basically banned local zoning control,” said Supervisor Dick Hadley. According to Hadley, the current ordinance the township has had since 2010 would keep companies …
Monday, July 30, 2012
The application was filed Monday.
State officials on Monday asked the state Supreme Court for expedited consideration of an appeal of a Commonwealth Court decision last week that ruled portions of the state’s new Marcellus Shale law—known as Act 13—as unconstitutional. The court last week ruled that zoning regulations related to Marcellus Shale play should be made at the local level, and not the state level as Act 13 mandated. “That decision has gutted Act 13 of one of its key interstitial parts and has created significant uncertainty for the Commission, the Department, and the regulated community at this critical juncture in the Marcellus Shale development,” an attorney for the Public Utility Commission and the state Department of Environmental protection wrote in the …
Friday, July 27, 2012
In light of Thursday’s decision by the Commonwealth Court, officials are advised to reject an amendment to an ordinance that would have brought Cranberry into compliance with Act 13 regulations.
The state Commonwealth Court’s decision earlier in the day to strike down portions of Act 13 put a different twist on a public hearing Cranberry held Thursday on a proposed ordinance dealing with drilling in the Marcellus Shale. The hearing was on an amendment to the township zoning ordinance that would have brought Cranberry into compliance with the state’s legislation governing Marcellus Shale operations. Also known as Act 13, the Gov. Tom Corbett-supported bill required statewide zoning regulations for drilling in the Marcellus Shale. Communities that did not follow the guidelines—which superseded hundreds of individual zoning ordinances already put into place by local municipalities across the state—risked losing impact fee revenues. …
40.698886
-80.109204
Cranberry Township Municipal Center
2525 Rochester Rd, Cranberry Twp, PA
/articles/act-13-ruling-impacts-cranberry-plans-for-marcellus-shale-drilling-regulations
1797220
/locations/7490277
Thursday, July 26, 2012
The state Commonwealth Court issued its opinion Thursday morning—calling those provisions unconstitutional.
The state Commonwealth Court on Thursday struck down portions of Pennsylvania’s newly enacted legislation governing Marcellus Shale operations—also known as Act 13—as unconstitutional. In the 54-page opinion filed by President Judge Dan Pellegrini, stated: “Petitioners allege that they have close to 150 unconventional Marcellus Shale wells drilled within their borders, and Act 13 prevents them from fulfilling their constitutional and statutory obligations to protect the health, safety and welfare of their citizens, as well as public natural resources from the industrial activity of oil and gas drilling. Petitioners allege that Act 13 requires them to modify many of their zoning laws.” The petitioners, which included a cluster of local …
Tom Barchfeld
8:38 am on Thursday, April 18, 2013
Mike, the EPA head herself could not find 1 instance of pollution in 60 years of fracking history. more ›