Court denies appeal of Murrysville's fracking ordinance

A local citizen group’s challenge of Murrysville’s unconventional drilling ordinance has been struck down in court.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Harry F. Smail denied an appeal by the Murrysville Watch Committee, which challenged an earlier decision by the Murrysville Zoning Hearing Board.

Smail pointed to a November 2019 Commonwealth Court decision in the case of Protect P-T vs. Penn Township Zoning Hearing Board, in which the court upheld the validity of a similar zoning ordinance.

“The Court noted that the (township) sufficiently balanced its citizen’s rights to health, safety and welfare with their rights to develop their land and their management of minerals, and that the objectors’ concerns did not rise above speculation,” Smail wrote in his decision.

In Murrysville, a well pad can only be placed in about 5% of the overlay district, where unconventional drilling is permitted.

Smail wrote that Watch Committee members failed to meet the legal burden of showing that the ordinance “is arbitrary, unreasonable and unrelated to the public health, safety, morals and general welfare,” and that it presented no evidence “that would differentiate the ordinance … from any of the (other Pennsylvania) ordinances which were upheld on appeal.”

Smail noted that Murrysville’s ordinance appeared to be more protective of residents in its restriction of where a well pad can be placed.

Smail also rejected the committee’s argument that the overlay district constitutes spot zoning, an arbitrary classification of a small piece of land or, put more simply, a zoning decision that sets a specific property apart from adjacent zoning with no reasonable basis.

“On the contrary, the (Zoning Hearing Board) found by competent evidence that the overlay district is a sizable area that was chosen, not arbitrarily, but based on factors such as population density and location of infrastructure,” Smail wrote.

Murrysville officials spent more than seven years developing the ordinance, adjusting it several times in light of court decisions. In January, Murrysville council members approved the first fracking well in the municipality, Olympus Energy’s Titan well pad.

Murrysville Watch Committee members can further appeal Smail’s decision.