“Our constitution guarantees our rights to clean air and water. These basic human rights are self-evident and we shouldn’t have to fight so hard, but it’s clear that in this corrupt government that is what we have to do. We will not stand down! Instead, we will use every legal means necessary to protect the rights of our community.”
- Executive Director of Protect PT, Gillian Graber
On Friday, December 13th, 2019 Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services and Woods Law Offices, on behalf of Protect Penn Township (Protect PT), filed a Petition for Allowance of Appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Petition challenges the Court to consider whether Penn Township officials satisfied their duty to protect citizens’ Environmental Rights in adopting a zoning ordinance that encourages haphazard unconventional natural gas development (fracking) throughout the growing suburban community. This case is the next step in a line of important cases, starting with the Robinson Township decision, which recognizes that there are existing constitutional limits on government actions that deny citizens of their rights under Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
In 2016, Protect PT submitted 850 signatures from community members asking their local legislators to restrict fracking to the Township’s industrial zoning district. When the Township adopted a Mineral Extraction Overlay District allowing resource extraction throughout more than half of the residential community, however, Protect PT filed a legal challenge. That case made its way to the Commonwealth Court, which issued a disappointing decision to deny Protect PT’s challenge in mid-November.
The record that could be in front of the PA Supreme Court was based on four days of testimony from experts and residents showing that the adopted ordinance failed to take into account the immediate or long-term effects of authorizing heavy industrial activity in the community. According to Protect PT’s experts (view their full reports here, here, and here), these effects include environmental, economic, and health impacts of serious concern. They concluded people living in close proximity to shale gas development are more likely to suffer from health effects such as respiratory symptoms, skin irritation, sleep disturbance and stress.
In support, Protect PT members testified about their experience living in close proximity to well pads. They testified about the continual noise, light and dust that disrupts their everyday lives as well as concerns for their health and property values. Danielle LeJeune testified that “I’m concerned that if we try to sell our house, it’s going to be very difficult because now we are going to be in what looks like an industrial park… It no longer has the appeal that this location had when we first bought our property.”
Penn Township is a rapidly growing residential community of more than 20,000 residents with eleven well pads approved for development and a twelfth well pad already proposed. Protect PT estimates the eleven well pads will result in drilling 50 or more wells in the community, with no limit or end in sight. To protect residents, the Township could have relied on the community’s land use planning tools, such as the Comprehensive Plan, to determine where it would be most appropriate to site fracking, but instead created an arbitrary overlay which encourages increased industrial activity throughout the residential community.
Ultimately, Protect PT hopes their municipal legislators will be forced to rethink their decision-making in light of their obligations as trustees of the community’s natural resources. In Robinson Township v PA Commonwealth, the PA Supreme Court found that “[b]y any responsible account, the exploitation of the Marcellus Shale Formation will produce a detrimental effect on the environment, on the people, their children, and future generations, and potentially on the public purse, perhaps rivaling the environmental effects of coal extraction.” If Protect PT is successful, the PA Supreme Court will again acknowledge the harmful impacts of unconventional gas development and find the rights of industrial developers are no more important than the Environmental Rights of Penn Township citizens.
City Planning
Civil & Environmental Engineer
Health Impacts of Fracking
