Local governments in Pennsylvania have the right to zone out drilling operations, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The 4-2 decision was a major victory for opponents of horizontal hydrsulic fracturing of the Marcellus Shale and other deep rock strata opened for development by fracking.
The court also sent back to the next lower court "for review and disposition challenges by a physician to the Act 13 provisions that would have prevented doctors from telling patients about health impacts related to shale gas development, and a constitutional challenge that the law benefits a single industry," Don Hopey reports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The court also sent back to the next lower court "for review and disposition challenges by a physician to the Act 13 provisions that would have prevented doctors from telling patients about health impacts related to shale gas development, and a constitutional challenge that the law benefits a single industry," Don Hopey reports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The PA Supreme Court did not ok "anti-drilling" local zoning as your headline suggests, but rather ok'd the right of local communities to use zoning to determine where drilling and related activities should take place. This allows municipalities to limit drilling activities in some zones where it should be limited--- residential, for example, but encourage it in areas where it is more appropriate-- such as areas zoned industrial. The communities that attempted to use zoning to guide the placement of oil and gas activities were not attempting to ban these activities outright but rather limit the development of such activities in residential areas where they would be an inappropriate use.
ReplyDelete