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By J.R. Brower

At their January 18 regularly scheduled meeting, the Nottingham Board of Supervisors updated attending residents on the status of the township’s Marcellus shale drilling activities. The newest drilling site, in the early stages of development, is on the Lutz property, off Valley View Road approximately one mile from its intersection with Venetia Road. Very close to that intersection is Peters Creek, the actual border between the two municipalities.

Nottingham Township Supervisors Doug King and Todd Flynn addressed issues brought up at an early December Peters Township Council meeting regarding the status of the proposed Nottingham shale drilling site. It is approximately two and a half miles from several new Peters developments off McCombs Road near a small park.

Peters landscaper Robert Donnan, who is also an avid local fractivist, complained to Council members about air quality and safety issues as well as multiple-well drilling pad numbers up to 20. He called it a “superpad”, saying it may be the largest proposed drilling operation in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Both Donnan and Peters Township Council president David Ball were critical of the EQT-operated well, which is in its preliminary planning stages. Donnan referred to flaring, which occurs briefly during the early stages of month-long hydraulic fracturing, as “anything that comes off the well”. Ball said the proposed site may violate the Pennsylvania Constitution and called Nottingham officials “negligent” for approving the well in a residential area.

EQT spokesperson Linda Robertson calmed Ball and Donnan by stating that the Lutz drilling site is in initial planning stages, so the number of proposed wells at the site is indefinite. She also said safety is a top concern for her company, which has a strong performance record that includes cooperation with municipalities and minimal land disturbance.

The Nottingham supervisors explained that the proposed EQT “superpad” was approved by both the planning and zoning boards, because the site is only 200 yards into the R-2 residential zone. Access to the mostly wooded area is completely in the A-1 agricultural zone, an area which encompasses approximately 75 percent of the mostly rural municipality.

The board revealed frustration with Peters officials miscommunication and the fact that Peters, with no active drilling activity received $360,000 in Impact Fees. Nottingham has three drilling sites in the works within its borders and received only $70,000 in Impact Fees, which are essentially state taxes on shale drillers, which benefit municipalities to improve their infrastructures.

The other drilling sites in the township that have multiple well pads include EQTs Harbison site on Cooper Road with 11 pads and Range Resources Malchoski site with 12 pads in the central area of Nottingham between Sugar Run and Valley View Roads.

Multiple pad drilling is now common in the oil and gas industry whereby horizontally-drilled wells can be circled out approximately 8,000 feet below the surface. The practice improves site production significantly as opposed to vertical drilling which requires separate pads for each well, thus minimizing earth surface disturbance.

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