Dateline: 26 June 2012
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| Pennsylvania farmer, Mike Bennett, fed up with fracking truck traffic, blockaded the road with his pickup (Read The Story Here). Quote from the article: "People are getting pretty fed up with how these drillers operate. My
neighbor Dick Trithart has gouges in his front yard from the trucks
passing by him, and his wife Myrna says the water trucks go by all night
and keep her awake. And this stuff is just getting underway here." (P.S. Be sure to read the comments to the article) |
Back in March of this year I attended a public meeting in Niles where gas industry advocates gave a presentation (Click Here to read my report on that meeting). I sat next to an old friend of mine who is on the Niles Town Board. After the presentation, during the question and answer time, my friend asked the two speakers if they felt it would be wise for the town to pass some road use laws.
The one speaker hesitated a moment before saying it might be a good idea. Then the other speaker, who is an attorney for the gas industry, immediately spoke up and said that it would be better if the town did not have any road use laws. He advised that the town simply negotiate a road use agreement with the gas company.
After the meeting ended, I told my friend that our town (Sempronius) had two conventional gas wells drilled back in 1999, and the gas company never contacted the town to negotiate a road use agreement. They just came and drilled. The town board had no say or control over the use of our roads, and as far as I know, the gas company had absolutely no responsibility to fix or maintain the roads they might have damaged.
I recall clearly that the Sempronius town board was very concerned about the destructive impact that heavy truck traffic would have on our town roads. I also recall one town resident who lives on the road where the wells were being drilled coming to a meeting and complaining about the traffic and noise.
As it was, damage to the roads was minimal, but it was minimal because the wells were conventional wells—they were not horizontal, hydrofracked wells. There is a world of difference in truck traffic between a conventional well and a pad with multiple hydrofracked wells on it, because each fracked well requires 3,000,000 to 8,000,000 gallons of water, and because fracked wells require additional truck traffic to haul rigs, generators, dragon tanks, and other equipment and chemicals.
The point I was making to my friend at the Niles meeting was that there is no guarantee that a gas company will ever do anything to repair town roads unless there are some sort of road use laws in effect. He replied that he knew that—he just wanted to hear what their answer would be.
This recollection came to me during the Sempronius Town Board meeting of June 18th (Click Here to read Part 1 of my report on the June meeting). When explaining to the board about different road protection measures that a town can take, attorney David Slottje made the comment that gas companies don’t want towns to have road use laws. They would rather just have voluntary road use agreements with a town. Well, that certainly appears to be true.
There has been some other discussion at recent Sempronius Town Board meetings about different road protection options and, frankly, I’ve been confused by the discussion. David Slottje’s explanation at the June meeting brought some clarity to my mind. Here is the gist of what I understand at this point.
According to David Slottje, there are two road protection options that a town can pursue. One is Road Use Laws, and the other is Road Use Agreements....
Road use laws are, essentially, established limits on what can be done on a town road. No baseline studies of town roads (costing $10,000, as discussed at previous town board meetings) are needed to put road use laws into effect. When it comes to a heavy, industrial activity in the town, with enormous amounts of heavy truck traffic (like we would get with horizontal gas drilling and hydrofracking) road use laws would serve to prevent such traffic on the roads and protect the roads from being destroyed. Furthermore, road use laws could serve to funnel the gas companies into a road use agreement with the town.
Without a road use law to steer a gas company into a road use agreement, there is no telling if the gas companies would repair the roads they damaged. The gas companies freely admit that they will ruin the town roads, but they then assure concerned citizens that they’ll fix the roads better than they ever were. Well, that’s real neighborly of them, but I don't think any responsible town board should take their word for it. From what I've heard from residents in hydrofracked Pennsylvania communities, the gas companies don't always do what they say they will when it comes to road repair and maintenance.
A road use agreement would require costly baseline studies of our current roads by an engineering company. And, in order to get the very best road use agreement with a gas company, I am thinking that the town might have to hire the services of an attorney with special expertise in that area. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that a road use agreement with a gas company would be a minefield of possibilities, liabilities and decisions. I’m sure our town attorney would advise us properly in this regard.
The way it looks to me, if the Town Board does not allow hydrofracking in Sempronius, this whole matter of road protection is a non-issue, and the town will face no additional costs or liabilities.
But if we proceed to allow hydrofracking, we will open up a hornet’s nest of road protection issues. I think this matter of road protection all by itself is reason enough to at least enact a moratorium in our town. As it stands now, it is not clear to me at all where other town board members stand on this matter of road protection options. Hopefully we could get some consensus on this matter during a moratorium period.
Once again, my primary concern boils down to safety of town residents. Roads that are severely damaged, or even impassable as a result of damage from high-volume truck traffic, will present safety issues and may open our town up to litigation. The safety of town roads is no small matter, and the Town Board bears considerable responsibility in this regard. This should be a matter of unanimous concern to the Town Board.