Range files suit against South Strabane
Attorneys for Range Resources filed a complaint and land use appeal against South Strabane Township Wednesday in Washington County Court, appealing the board of supervisors’ denial of the company’s conditional use application for the Baumel well pad site on Kopper Kettle Road.
The suit came a day after a second vote on allowing overnight accommodations for workers failed to pass.
Attorneys for Range, including Robert Max Junker, who spoke on Range’s behalf Tuesday during a board meeting, asked the court enter an order recognizing Range’s deemed approval of the Baumel application and the revised application, including the housing trailers, and reverse the township’s denial.
The suit alleges Range has deemed approval of its conditional use applications because they were not considered in a timely manner by supervisors and the township is imposing an unreasonable condition.
The suit states “… the municipalities planning code provides that where the supervisors fail to commence the required hearing within 60 days from the date of receipt of the applicant’s application, the decision shall be deemed to have been rendered in favor of the application.”
According to the complaint, Range originally filed the application Aug. 27, 2014, and the first public hearing was held Oct. 28, 2014.
Although the first application was approved Nov. 25, 2014, Range went back to the township in September of this year, seeking a revision so temporary trailers for overnight accommodations for 11 workers could be added.
“The deadline … to commence the first public hearing on the revised Baumel application … expired on Nov. 16, 2015,” the suit reads.
Range is requesting the court to approve the revised Baumel application without conditions and to award an unspecified amount in damages.
The condition of temporary housing trailers was denied by supervisors Nov. 24, and again Tuesday, when the gas company’s conditional use application for the Zediker Station West site on Mitchell Road also failed.
Both motions received a 2-2 vote by supervisors, prompting several residents to call out, asking that Supervisor Edward Mazur, who was absent due to a health issue, be contacted via telephone to cast his vote.
The suit states, “Prior to taking the vote on the renewed motion, Supervisor Keisling refused Range’s point of order and request that the board contact Supervisor Mazur by phone to participate in the vote on the renewed motion, as the board has done in the past on other township matters.”
Solicitor Thomas Lonich said Wednesday that supervisors “could have called” Mazur to cast a vote, but as a matter of protocol, arrangements for remote voting are made before a meeting begins.
Supervisor Laynee Zipko made a motion Tuesday to approve overnight accommodations for Range workers, which Daniel Piatt voted for and Jack Keisling and Robert Koman voted against. At the November meeting, Zipko abstained and Mazur voted to approve the motion.
Zipko, who announced in March that she is a natural gas leaseholder, is also a member of the planning commission, working on a new oil and gas ordinance recommendation. She has regularly abstained from voting as a supervisor on drilling motions and said previously she spoke with the state ethics committee about her plight.
On Wednesday, she said she continued to research whether voting was a conflict of interest.
“I have done further investigation and been given clearer direction with how to proceed,” she said. “I’m able now to represent the people who voted me to this office.”
Keisling, who has a lease with Range Resources in another township, told residents he wanted to be cautious when considering gas wells.
“That’s no secret,” he said about his lease. “They have a right to drill. We’re not saying ‘No drilling.’ … We may go a little slower than you’d like.”
Keisling, Mazur and Zipko, along with two new council members, will be tasked with taking action on the township’s developing gas ordinance. But Bob Weber and Thomas L. Moore, who will replace Piatt and Koman when their terms expire at the end of the year, are not novices to township politics; Weber sits on the planning commission and Moore is a former chairman of the board of supervisors.