Cecil Township considers 2,500-foot setbacks for oil and gas surface operations
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
CECIL-Cecil Township’s supervisors are set to vote in November on changing its oil and gas ordinance so it would place surface drilling operations 2,500 feet away from “protected structures,” but waive that distance if all homeowners within that buffer zone agree to permit drilling.
It also would create a 5,000-foot setback from schools and hospitals.
The new proposal scuttles the overlay maps that were part of proposed amendments to the township’s oil and gas ordinance. Cecil’s supervisors have been mulling making changes to its 13-year-old oil and gas ordinance since April, and residents attending public hearings have almost uniformly been calling for 2,500-foot setbacks.
At the start of a public hearing where the new proposal was unveiled last week, Tom Casciola, who chairs the board of supervisors, acknowledged that oil and gas drilling is “a divisive and contentious issue” and it’s “the most serious issue this township has ever faced.”
He added, “Zoning is to protect you from me … This board has the right to tell you how you can use your property.”
Board member Cindy Fisher pointed out that five well pads that are already in Cecil Township will be grandfathered in, and “you can’t have a ban (on drilling) when you already have five well pads.” She said the well pads cover 60% of the township and “that is far, far from exclusionary.”
Fisher also said, “We are comfortable that it will hold up in court.”
“Our obligation is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Cecil Township,” she added.
A setback of 2,500 feet works out to be a little less than half a mile, and 5,000 feet is just below a mile.
Ned Ketyer, a Bridgeville-based pediatrician and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania called the proposed setbacks “a small but necessary step in protecting the health of the community.”
A Cecil resident, Scott Byrd, characterized himself as “far right” and “conservative,” but said he supported the proposed changes because “I’m drill, baby, drill, not kill, baby, kill.”
A dissenting view was offered by John Kettering, a Pittsburgh lawyer representing the estate of Elizabeth Cowden, who died last year and was a Cecil Township supervisor from 2012 to 2020. He said the proposal would be “a taking of significant economic value to landowners” and would give neighboring landowners “a say in what you do with your property.”
“As landowners, there are rights to be protected,” Kettering said. “The board should take those rights into consideration.”
The board will next take up the proposal at its meeting on Monday, Nov. 4.