On Monday, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced the approval of the conversion of an old natural gas well in Grant Township to an injection well for the disposal of wastewater from fracking. The agency failed to note in its announcement that it has also sued Grant Township, seeking to invalidate its home rule charter, which residents voted for in the November 2015 general election.
DEP sued Grant Township and Highland Township, Elk County, which had followed the same course as Grant Township had in seeking to ban injection wells. The suits filed in Commonwealth Court state that injection wells are exclusively and comprehensively regulated by DEP, and the home rule charters were approved by voters specifically to ban wastewater injection wells.
In 2013, the state Supreme Court struck down portions of Pennsylvania’s Oil and Gas Act that superseded local zoning, but DEP contends in its lawsuits that the section of the law that remain intact maintain the agency’s right to regulate oil and gas operations.
Grant Township and Highland Township would both need to commit the funds to fight the lawsuits. They were both aided in their original fight to ban the wells by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has not publicly commented on whether it will be involved in the two new lawsuits, but has said that the suits show the relationship between state agencies and corporate interests.
