Murrysville council approves 1st fracking well

The first signs residents will see to indicate that a horizontal-drilling Marcellus shale well has been approved in Murrysville is probably not what they expected: road improvements.

Before work gets going on Olympus Energy’s Titan well — which received Murrysville council’s approval for conditional-use and site plan applications in late Deceber — the first step will be widening several sections of roadway to help accommodate trucking convoys that will bring materials to and from the site.

The Titan project was approved by a 5-0 vote. Council President Josh Lorenz abstained due to a potential conflict of interest, and Councilman Tony Spadaro was not present.

And while an appeal of the municipality’s zoning ordinance has yet to be heard in the Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas, the parameters have mostly been set for the start of horizontal fracking in Murrysville, off Bollinger Road.

The approval was the result of “our best efforts at coming to acceptable conditions,” consulting attorney Bill Sittig told council members.

“The good part of it is, by and large, council has sited the well so that it’s appropriate for the type of use and is the least impactful,” he said. “The downside is the infrastructure, particularly the roadways, which are not robust.”

Sittig said that Olympus officials “reluctantly agreed” to a three-year time frame for completing the project. Within that time frame, they will have time limits on the various project stages of 120 days (construction), 180 days (drilling) and 180 days (completion).

“We recognize that there was a strong desire on the part of council to have an outside limit,” Olympus attorney Pierce Richardson said. “And we thought three years was appropriate to provide for those potential intervals (between stages). But the three years doensn’t expand the overall time limits on each stage.”

Noise monitoring will continue through the first 30 days of the well’s production stage, at which point Sittig said noise is no longer an issue. “The production stage would be much like what you see around town now with the ‘Christmas tree’ (rig set-up),” Murrysville Chief Administrator Jim Morrison told council.

As to the contentious issue of bringing water to the site, Olympus’ Jennifer Hoffman said the company would make every effort to pipe in 100% of the necessary water through an agreement with the Municipality Authority of Westmoreland County. That agreement, however, is not yet in place.

As to plans for a water-related emergency, Hoffman said Olympus would have an above-ground fresh-water storage tank at the site, but it would not be sufficient to handle more than a couple stages of the fracking process.

Olympus Communications Director Kim Price said Murrysville is currently home to more than 300 conventional natural gas wells.

“With the approval of the Titan Well Pad, Olympus Energy is taking Murrysville into the current era of unconventional development,” Price said. “Now, from a singular surface location, we have the ability to develop several square miles of mineral acreage while keeping disturbance at a minimum.”

Councilwoman Toni Brockway thanked Olympus “for trying to accommodate how strict and concerned we were, especially when it came to water and piping it in,” she said “It looks more protective now than it did in the past.”

Morrison said council’s approval vote was “a culmination of a long many years, starting with the (fracking ordinance).”

“We put an ordinance in place we felt was in the best interest of the community,” he said. “There’s no better satisfaction than having a project approved because of that. We’ll be diligent with it, and we’ll keep the best interests of residents in mind throughout the process.”