Pittsburgh may become the first U.S. city to ban natural gas drilling within the city
Residents of Pittsburgh, PA, are asking their City Council to pass what would be the nation's very first ban on natural gas drilling within city limits. And it appears they may get their wishes as early as next month, when the Council plans to vote on this groundbreaking ordinance.
The ordinance is titled:
BAN ON MARCELLUS SHALE DRILLING IN THE CITY OF PITTSBURGH
"AN ORDINANCE TO PROTECT THE HEALTH, SAFETY, AND WELFARE OF RESIDENTS AND NEIGHBORHOODS OF PITTSBURGH BY BANNING THE COMMERCIAL EXTRACTION OF NATURAL GAS WITHIN THE CITY; ESTABLISHING A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PITTSBURGH RESIDENTS; AND REMOVING LEGAL POWERS FROM GAS EXTRACTION WITHIN THE CITY."
At the heart of the ordinance is this statement of law: It shall be unlawful for any corporation to engage in the extraction of natural gas within the City of Pittsburgh.
Also included in the ordinance is a local “bill of rights” that asserts legal protections for the right to water; the rights of natural communities; the right to local self-government, and the right of the people to enforce and protect these rights through their municipal government. Commenting on his legislative proposal, City Council member Doug Shields stated, “Many people think that this is only about gas drilling. It’s not – it’s about our authority as a municipal community to say “no” to corporations that will cause damage to our community. It’s about our right to community, local self-government.”
Text of Ordinance HERE.
Links to other press releases about the ordinance on City Council member Doug Shields' webpage.
Here are some links to additional news and press releases about this fast developing story:
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by Ben Price, Projects Director
August 17th, 2010
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Pennsylvania Community Rights Network
P.O. Box 2016 Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201
http://www.celdf.org
Pittsburgh Council to Consider Banning Corporations from Drilling for Natural Gas in the City
“It’s about our authority as a community to decide, not corporations deciding for us.” – Councilman Doug Shields
MEDIA RELEASE
August 17, 2010
CONTACT: Ben Price (717) 254-3233
benprice@celdf.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Tuesday, August 17, 2010- Pittsburgh, PA) At a City Hall press conference today, Councilman Doug Shields announced he will introduce a bill that would ban corporations from drilling for gas in the city of Pittsburgh. He said he will introduce the ordinance following Council’s current recess.
At the heart of “Pittsburgh’s Community Protection from Natural Gas Extraction Ordinance” is this statement of law: It shall be unlawful for any corporation to engage in the extraction of natural gas within the City of Pittsburgh.
Also included in the ordinance is a local “bill of rights” that asserts legal protections for the right to water, the rights of natural communities, the right to local self-government, and the right of the people to enforce and protect these rights through their municipal government.
The bill was drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund at the invitation of Council members.
Commenting on his legislative proposal, Shields stated, “Many people think that this is only about gas drilling. It’s not – it’s about our authority as a municipal community to say “no” to corporations that will cause damage to our community. It’s about our right to community, local self-government.”
Shields urged all municipalities in the Commonwealth to enact similar laws “to send a message to Harrisburg,” and he insisted that a temporary moratorium “will not be an acceptable consolation prize for a failure of the State to recognize this local law and these fundamental rights.”
Energy corporations are setting up shop in communities throughout Pennsylvania, with plans to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation. The frenzy of industrial gas extraction that once appeared to be confined to rural communities and state forest lands has taken residents of the city by surprise. Corporate “land men” have busily signed-up Pittsburgh property owners to contracts allowing wells to be erected on private property throughout the city. The prospect of paved-over green spaces, nights lit like airport runways, round-the-clock sounds of loud machinery, broken and pitted roads from the high volume truck traffic, and the threat of toxic trespass by a cocktail of patented chemicals and escaping methane into the ground water, has alarmed neighbors of lease-holders, and they’ve begun to organize in opposition to the proposed drilling.
Ben Price, Projects Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, said he applauds the Council member for taking a stand on behalf of community rights. “Some will say it’s controversial, or that the city doesn’t have the authority to ban gas drilling. The only way that’s true is if the State has the authority to strip the residents of the city of their rights, and it doesn’t.”
Price commented that “we don’t have a gas drilling problem. What we have is a democracy problem. We need to stop treating the environmental symptoms and cure the societal disease that’s brought fracking to our doorstep. The State says we don’t have the right to decide whether or not we get fracked and that only the corporate-lobbied members of the General Assembly have the wisdom to decide how much harm should be legalized through state-issued permits. There’s something sick about that kind of thinking. If we cure the systemic anti-democratic disorder manifested by our state’s refusal to recognize the right to local, community self-government, gas drilling without consent of the governed will go away.”
The gas extraction technique known as “fracking” has been cited as a threat to surface and ground water throughout the region, and has been blamed for fatal explosions, the contamination of drinking water, local streams, the air and soil. Collateral damage includes lost property value, ingestion of toxins by livestock, drying up of mortgage loans for prospective home buyers, and threatened loss of organic certification for farmers in the affected communities.
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, located in Chambersburg, has been working with people in Pennsylvania since 1995 to assert their fundamental rights to democratic local self-governance, and to enact laws which end destructive and rights-denying corporate action aided and abetted by state and federal governments.
Keep updated with our work on Facebook.
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Councilman to propose gas drilling ban in city; Ravenstahl opposes idea
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
By Joe Smydo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields today plans to unveil legislation to ban natural gas drilling in the city, saying he's wants to test a municipality's right to self-government, even if that means inviting a legal challenge from the drilling industry.
"Why can't we say no? Why is it that local authorities, the local government, can't make that determination?" Mr. Shields said Monday, the same day that the University of Pittsburgh reported a surge in the number of Allegheny County property owners who have leased land for oil and gas exploration.
Since 2003, about 35,400 acres -- about 7 percent of the county's land area -- have been leased, mostly for Marcellus Shale exploration, according to the University Center for Social and Urban Research. The number of new leases jumped from 30 in 2003 to 273 in 2008 to 1,153 last year, researchers said.
In Pittsburgh, only 362 acres, or about 1 percent of the city's land area, is under lease, Bob Gradeck, research project manager, said. Yet a flurry of leasing in East End neighborhoods has led to an outpouring of concern about river pollution and other potential problems in recent months.
City Councilman Patrick Dowd, who in June introduced legislation to impose operating and safety requirements on gas producers, said the city law department told him a drilling ban likely would not withstand a legal challenge. But Mr. Shields said it's worth attempting a ban and asserting the city's right to protect itself from what he described as a potentially harmful industry.
Mr. Shields has talked about a ban since June. His bill was written with the help of Ben Price, projects director for the Franklin County-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit law firm that says it provides free or reduced-cost services to communities facing environmental threats.
Pennsylvania's Oil and Gas Act gives the state the authority to regulate those industries. But a ban is not a regulation, Mr. Price said, suggesting that distinction opens the door for Mr. Shields' legislation.
Governments long have struggled in legal fights to ban strip clubs and firearms, but those debates involved thorny First and Second Amendment issues, Mr. Price and Mr. Shields said. They noted that Pennsylvania municipalities, while lacking authority to regulate liquor sales within their borders, may elect to go dry and ban them altogether.
Mr. Price also said a municipality has the fundamental right and "police powers" to protect its residents' safety and welfare.
Kathryn Klaber, president and executive director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a Cecil-based trade group, said the city would have a difficult time barring landowners' development of their mineral rights.
"I really believe that city of Pittsburgh residents -- those who are paying taxes to support the city budget and certainly the landowners who own their mineral rights -- deserve a much broader discussion about what the industry would mean to their pocketbooks and to the future of Pittsburgh," she said.
Mr. Shields' bill has the support of state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, who has introduced legislation that would impose a one-year statewide moratorium on new drilling so officials could ponder tighter regulations. He said Mr. Shields' bill would face a significant legal hurdle but believes that the city could make a compelling case.
The bill may face an uphill battle even among other city officials.
Mr. Dowd said attempts to impose a ban might interfere with more practical steps the city could take to protect residents, such as his bill's proposed requirement that production companies develop emergency management plans.
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl also opposes a ban, in part because drilling would create jobs, tax revenue for the state and spinoff revenue -- such as earned-income tax -- for the financially strapped city, his spokeswoman, Joanna Doven said. At the same time, she said, Mr. Ravenstahl understands concerns about potential hazards.
"What the mayor is focusing on is balancing the two," she said, noting the city is "going to prepare for any possible" pollution, well fires or other risks.
Mr. Gradeck said the university researchers spent months developing a database and interactive map of oil and gas leases, documenting what he called a "pretty dramatic increase" in leasing activity. The map is available at http://www.ucsur.pitt.edu/thepub.php.
The amount of land leased in the city is small compared with municipalities in other parts of Allegheny County, Mr. Gradeck said. In West Deer, for example, 4,348 acres -- about 23.6 percent of the township's land area -- has been leased since 2003, he said.
Ms. Klaber said the 7 percent leasing rate in Allegheny County is much smaller than in other Pennsylvania counties. Citing the especially modest lease holdings in the city, Ms. Klaber said drilling there is not imminent.
"We have time to establish a more healthy dialogue" with city leaders, she said.
Joe Smydo: jsmydo@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10229/1080536-53.stm#ixzz11Sg27zLv
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Pittsburgh Takes a Stance Against Fracking; Who's Next?
by Rachel Cernansky, Green Planet
19 August 2010
As the debate over fracking intensifies across the U.S., opponents are finding different ways to fight the expansion of the natural gas drilling method that so many people feel is unsafe for the environment and human health.
In Pittsburgh this week, that opposition has come in the form of a proposed ban: city City Councilman Doug Shields plans to introduce a bill next month that would prohibit corporations from drilling in Pittsburgh.
Some feel it's unlikely to pass. But an interesting point that works in the bill's favor: authority to regulate the industry lies with the state—not the city—but an outright ban would not count as regulation.
Ben Price, who works with a local nonprofit law firm and who helped draft the bill, believes that could make all the difference: the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes, "a ban is not a regulation, Mr. Price said, suggesting that distinction opens the door for Mr. Shields' legislation."
The story continues:
Governments long have struggled in legal fights to ban strip clubs and firearms, but those debates involved thorny First and Second Amendment issues, Mr. Price and Mr. Shields said. They noted that Pennsylvania municipalities, while lacking authority to regulate liquor sales within their borders, may elect to go dry and ban them altogether.
Mr. Price also said a municipality has the fundamental right and "police powers" to protect its residents' safety and welfare.
Councilman Shields seems to recognize it might not be a popular move or a likely success, but stands firm in his belief that the government should do its best to act in the best interests of the city. The Post-Gazette quotes him saying, "Why can't we say no? Why is it that local authorities, the local government, can't make that determination?"
With debate picking up around the country, from the Rockies to upstate New York, will other local governments take the same stance?
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Councilman Shields introduces Drilling Ban legislation
8 September 2010
On September 7, 2010 Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields introduced an ordinance that will ban gas extraction within the city limits.
Summary of Councilman Shields’ Drilling Ban Ordinance
Also see: The Grassroots’ Report: City Council's 9/7/2010 Meeting
On September 7, 2010 Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields introduced an ordinance that will ban gas extraction within the city limits.
The ordinance has three goals:
1. To protect Pittsburghers and their community’s health, safety and welfare.
2. To establish a bill of rights for Pittsburghers
3. To remove legal powers from gas drillers within the city.
The legislation is based on the people’s “inherent right” to govern our own communities and cites both the Declaration of Independance and our state’s constitution as guarantors of these rights.
The ordinance denies corporations the rights of “persons” given by the federal and state Constitutions. Entities violating the ordinance will be subject to fines and imprisonment.
It goes further to state that permits, etc. issued by any state or federal body, which are not in accordance with our city’s law, will be invalid within the city. An important element is “severability” - if a court deems a part of the ordinance invalid or unconstitutional, the remainder of the ordinance will stand as is.
The Sept. 7 council meeting will be replayed on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 10 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
What YOU can do to support Councilman Shields’ ordinance:
1. Contact YOUR city council member and ask for their support. Ask your friends and neighbors to do the same
2. Attend City Council’s Public Hearing on Marcellus drilling Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. (rally at 6:30 p.m.), 414 Grant St., downtown Pittsburgh. To register to speak call the Clerk's Office at 412-255-2138
3. Write a letter to the editor in support of the drilling ban, don’t forget to write to your neighborhood/community newsletters too.
Post Gazette: letters@post-gazette.com
Pittsburgh Tribune Review: opinion@tribweb.com
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Pittsburghers Decry Possible Urban Gas Wells
Posted by on September 14th, 2010
Last night, community members and environmental activists voiced their support for Councilman Doug Shields’ bill to ban Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling in Pittsburgh.
Council Chambers were packed with people toting signs and wearing T-shirts protesting the Shale drilling, while a single supporter of city drilling couldn’t be found.
Former Green Party Senate candidate and environmental activist Mel Packer says Council should pass the bill, despite the fact that it goes against a state regulation that says municipalities can’t outlaw gas wells.
“You need to ignore the lawyers that will tell you it will likely be declared unconstitutional by the state courts, because it’s in conflict with Pennsylvania state laws. You need to welcome that controversy. You need to challenge the law that says the citizens of the city don’t have the right to defend, to protect our environment. You need to stick up for the civil rights of our community. You need to stick with the citizens, not corporate powers.”
Kate St. John of Greenfield says drilling in the city would lower property values and quality of life in the neighborhoods containing gas wells.
Many echoed pollution concerns surrounding the fluid drillers use to fracture the rock layers surrounding deep pockets of gas, saying that such “fracing” water contains carcinogens and contaminates water supplies.
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