Gas company once again seeks drilling permit

 

By Amanda Cregan, Intelligencer, March 3, 2009

Gas drillers are inching their way into Nockamixon.

Arbor Resources has taken momentum from a recent court decision, and is seeking a permit to drill for natural gas on a property along Beaver Run Road in Revere.

The Michigan-based gas company has been working to start exploratory drilling for natural gas that may be trapped thousands of feet below Nockamixon but had been wrapped up in a case against township supervisors.

Last month, Arbor took home a victory in a case before the zoning hearing board, the judicial first stop. The board agreed with gas drillers that Pennsylvania's Oil and Gas Act overshadows any local legislation.

Nockamixon supervisors have vowed to appeal the ruling before Commonwealth Court.

On Feb. 23, Arbor filed an application to drill on the Beaver Run Road parcel. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has 45 days to review the forms and issue a permit to break ground.

It's not the first time a gas drilling permit has been issued for the property.

In 2007, Arbor first obtained a permit for the site, but the company failed to properly complete the paperwork in a routine annual renewal this January, and the permit was scrapped.

Nockamixon supervisors have been working to defend their local ordinances, which restrict where gas drilling can take place in the township.

They too have taken momentum from a recent court decision.

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court just ruled on a couple of cases in western Pennsylvania that are very similar to the Nockamixon case.

The highest state court ruled that a local municipality cannot regulate gas drilling activities, but can restrict drilling through zoning.

Current Nockamixon zoning confines gas drilling to any parcels that fall within the boundaries of the quarry or industry.

It's unclear how many of the 250 property owners who hold gas leases in Nockamixon are within those boundaries, but the Beaver Run Road site that Arbor is seeking a permit to drill does not fall within an industrial zone.

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