SHARE WIDELY AND Please attend the Monroeville Planning Commission meeting at the Monroeville Municipal building on Wednesday evening, January 17, 2018, at 7:30 PM. It is so important to voice your opinion about fracking in Monroeville if you are a Monroeville resident. Sit in solidarity if you are a resident of Western PA.
Today, January 14, 2018, the front page of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has an article by Anya Litvak titled, Gas drillers supersizing well pads. She states "...from a 10-acre spot, a company can theoretically slurp natural gas from underneath an area nearly the size of the City of Pittsburgh." It seems Monroeville is preparing 150 acres of property adjacent to Pitcairn where Monroeville's landfill is located, for this purpose... Elisa Beck
From Lois Drumheller:
Thank you for giving me a platform to communicate recent local governmental actions to control the one industry NO municipality in PA by law can impede - gas and oil, drilling into the Marcellus Shale.
Most people reading this are interested in how Monroeville's members of Council, Planning Commission and Zoning Hearing Board will carry out by law as their responsibility for: the health, safety and welfare of the public.
Because the Oil Industry’s Monroeville based Huntley and Huntley has an interest in fracking Allegheny and therefore, Monroeville, Monroeville's reactions to “cooperate” abruptly changed some allowances of seismic testing. It took little time after GeoKinentics, the seismic testing contractor working with Huntley & Huntley to challenge restrictions to seismic testing all over Monroeville (seismic testing is the first step in fracking). This left many Monroeville households confused when approached by those conducting the sell on seismic testing.
Many who have attended Council meetings were introduced to our group, Sustainable Monroeville. Waking up can be hard. However, we have been instrumental to hold Monroeville Council's promise to re-evaluate zoning regulations over oil and gas. We have accomplished much since last October, when the issue was raised on testing and drilling. From our actions, the zoning ordinance that showed an allowable, but conditional use of oil and gas exploration in every zoning district was quickly changed to that allowing this only in the M-2 (Industrial district). Since then, in December of 2017, we encouraged and Solicitor Wratcher responded by giving Council a proposed ordinance that the public had not seen. Thanks to meeting attendees like Dave Mintz, the public was able to see the proposed ordinance the day after that meeting. Why shouldn’t we have?
Now, in January, we learned Monroeville's Zoning Ordinance (which had a long overdue update) would now have this proposed ordinance as an amendment to regulate the gas and oil industry for fracking (horizontal drilling). This ordinance (introduced January 4, 2018) and a new zoning map is linked to here:
Proposed ordinance: http://www.monroevi
Proposed zoning map: http://www.monroeville.pa
Council will ultimately act to pass the proposed ordinance, or revise the draft into final recommendations, per the body of governments who should do that sort of thing. Meanwhile, the next step in that discussion will be this Wednesday when the proposed ordinance will go in front of the Planning Commission for review/recommendations. This is where I am asking everyone who can to attend this Wednesday night meeting (Jan 17, 7:30 PM, Monroeville Municipal Council Chambers) so that the public is able to be heard! We need to question after examining it. I’m sure many will have questions and more advice for clarification. Start writing your questions down, as I am also doing. The ordinance is on the Wednesday agenda as the last item.
See where S-1 is located. How much of S-1 is owned by the municipality? Are there concerns with surrounding infrastructure? Will air quality be measured? Who will the municipality recommend as hydrologist in the assessment of the infrastructure? Where would the water come from?
Planning Commission 1/17/2018 Agenda linked here: http://www.monroeville.pa.us/
Please contact me if you have further questions or need clarifications. I’ll do what I can to answer. The people who are in the vicinity of the S-1 district will no doubt have questions because the land fill is nearby, coal seams are running down the middle of the airport, and our neighbors in Pitcairn aren’t even aware of this, as far as I can tell. This is why I asked the Times Express to attend.
Hoping to see them and you Wednesday evening.
Great Thanks,
Hope has two daughters, anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. St. Augustine
