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South Strabane: Approval, with conditions, of gas well

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During a special meeting Thursday, South Strabane Township supervisors reconsidered a conditional use application by Range Resources for the Zediker Station West gas well site on Mitchell Road, reversing their Dec. 15 denial. The decision, however, probably won’t help the township avoid a legal battle.

After the application was voted down by supervisors, Range Resources filed a land use appeal Dec. 30 in Washington County Court, challenging the denial.

Lawyers for the gas company claimed supervisors failed to consider the application in a timely manner and, as a result, the request should be deemed as an approval.

Ranger further claimed supervisors waived any ability to impose conditions on the site and that some supervisors acted because of personal bias.

During Thursday’s meeting, supervisors voted to approve the application, subject to 49 conditions previously agreed upon by Range, but added four more conditions.

Those conditions include Range using routes 40 and 519 to Rankin and Mitchell roads to access the site; agreeing not to construct a compressor station in the township related to the Zediker site; locating the well pad 1,500 feet from residences and 2,500 feet from parks and roads; and delaying all drilling until all wells are approved by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Supervisor Edward Mazur, who voted against all the conditions, told his colleagues, “You do not get in a whizzing contest with a skunk and you don’t take a knife to a gun fight. The township is in both situations.”

In a letter presented to supervisors before Thursday’s meeting, Robert Max Junker, an attorney representing Range, stated, “If the intent is to vote to settle the appeal by approving the application subject to the conditions as modified by Range in its presentation and as documented in the Nov. 24 meeting minutes … Range will agree to a settlement in the form of a consent order of court … to end the case.”

“You are advised that Range objects to any action other than an approval based on the negotiated conditions,” the letter reads. “It is incumbent upon supervisors to take action free from personal bias, prejudice and the appearance of impropriety.”

In the case of a motion to deny or grant with other conditions, Range called upon supervisors Jack Keisling, Tom Moore and Bob Weber to recuse themselves from action based on “evidence of personal bias,” citing comments from the three during previous meetings.

Moore and Weber were just sworn in as supervisors Monday, but Moore is a previous chairman of the board of supervisors and Weber is on the township’s planning commission.

After the meeting, Range Resources released the following statement.

“We are approaching the two-year mark in terms of Range’s commitment to work cooperatively with the township to develop these locations in a manner that exceeds the expectations of the community as we have at hundreds of other locations. This has included adjusting and modifying our work to meet the unique needs of the community, which was based on dozens of hours of public input. We believe we’ve done all that we can to accomplish this mutual goal and we will continue to work through the legal process which we are currently assessing.”

Range filed a separate suit Dec. 16, appealing the supervisors’ denial of their conditional use application for the Baumel well pad site on Kopper Kettle Road.

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