Lest we get depressed with the recent decision handed down by Judge Yeager on the Middlesex Twp. zoning case, let's look at another struggle: the Civil Rights struggle of the '50's and '60's.

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery (AL) bus. She was charged with disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. A 381-day boycott of the buses, a near bankrupting of the transit company, and a federal court decision saying such practices as segregated bus seats were unconstitutional didn't end the practice; it just made it illegal.

Although the 1954 Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decreed that segregated schools were unconstitutional, many schools remained segregated.  In 1957, 9 black teens had to be escorted by Army and National Guard troops to classes at Little Rock's Central High School -- the first black students to attend school there.  The troops were there to "maintain order and peace."

In 1960, four black students sat at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina and asked to be served. They were not. They were forced to leave when the store closed. A group of black students in Nashville, replicating the Greensboro event, were beaten by white teens and then arrested for disorderly conduct.

In 1961, black and white passengers were savagely beaten and imprisoned for riding together on buses from Washington, D.C. to cities in the Deep South in the Freedom Rides, designed to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional.

In 1962, after repeated failures to gain admittance to the University of Mississippi, James Merideth was admitted when a federal court ruled that the school could not bar a student based on race. It took 500 troops to allow him to enroll and he was continually harassed.

In 1963 Dr. King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech in front of over 200,000 people in Washington, DC, but also in that year Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in Mississippi and four young girls were killed in a church bombing perpetrated by Ku Klux Klan members in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Civil Rights Act was passed and signed into law in 1964. It ended, at least in legal theory, the unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public.  Yet when it came to registering African-American voters, discrimination continued.

In 1965, following several peaceful voting rights demonstrations (including one in which Civil Rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered by a police officer in Marion, AL), a series of marches from Selma to Montgomery AL were initiated. The first attempt was brutally halted by state troopers and county possemen who attacked the unarmed marchers with billy clubs and tear gas. The news footage of "Bloody Sunday" galvanized the country and President Johnson announced that he was sending a voting rights bill to Congress, which later that year became the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

So what does all this long-suffering and brutality have to do with the Middlesex Twp. zoning case?  It offers us a powerful lesson: we will not lose unless we quit fighting.  This is true of the legal process and beyond.  In 2013 the PA Supreme Court ruled that Act 13 zoning is unconstitutional, stating that shale-gas drilling is an industrial use which is incompatible with residential zoning uses.  Yet township solicitors continue to ignore these admonitions, and now a county judge has done so as well.  And so this case will be appealed to the Commonwealth Court and ultimately the state Supreme Court.  We lose only if we quit fighting.

But it is equally true beyond the legal process.  Beyond the obvious abomination of a heavy industrial use placed in a formerly quiet residential neighborhood, there is the growing evidence that shale-gas drilling is an abomination to the planet -- to the air we breathe, the water we drink, to our children, pets and wildlife and to our climatological system that is growing more out of control by the month.  This abomination must be stopped.  

Despite laws being passed that were designed to help protect the rights of minorities, the Civil Rights movement had to keep implementing protests and demonstrations to bring the true spirit of those laws to fruition.  Our state and country may or may not pass laws to address the abomination of shale-gas drilling; it may be up to us to continue to draw attention to these hazards and keep them in the forefront of the public consciousness, just as Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights activists did with black rights issues in the '50's and '60's.  We can't give up until shale-gas drilling is banned everywhere on the planet in favor of clean and renewable energy.

Make no mistake: the shale-gas protest movement is very much a civil-rights movement: our right to clean air, pure water and a healthy environment for decades to come.  These rights were established by Pennsylvania's Environmental Rights Amendment -- Article I, Section 27 of the PA Constitution --  in 1970, and re-affirmed in the Robinson Township case of 2013.  Like the civil rights laws of the '50's and '60's, they are being ignored.  Like those brave activists and organizers, we must continue the fight.  We will not lose, unless we quit fighting.

-- Michael Bagdes-Canning

On April 21, with little fanfare and zero media coverage, the Butler Township Board of Commissioners approved the construction of a Marcellus Shale well pad in a residential area. Details of the drilling site off Schaffner Road in an area zoned R-1 (Single Family Residential) may be found on the township website in the Planning Committee meeting minutes for Apr. 1.

Prior to the passage of Act 13 in Feb. 2012, Butler Township ordinances allowed drilling in agricultural and manufacturing zones only. After Act 13 was passed, the commissioners drafted a letter of support for those municipalities mounting a legal challenge to the zoning prohibitions of Act 13. In December 2013 that challenge was successful, and the PA Supreme Court restored to municipalities their right to zone drilling.

But now that the zoning powers which they once supported have been restored, the Butler Township commissioners seem no longer interested in zoning safeguards with regard to drilling. The current drilling ordinance, adopted in Dec. 2012 to comply with the original version of Act 13, permits drilling in all zones.

I wonder if any other Butler Township residents find this trend disturbing. Or perhaps they have bought into the industry's claims that shale-gas drilling is safe and tightly regulated and there is nothing to worry about. Myself and others have been sharing factual reports to the contrary for years now; if readers aren't yet convinced that this process needs at the very least to be kept out of residential areas, they probably never will be.

Then again, perhaps many township residents have leased their residential properties and so wish for the township's drilling ordinance to remain as it is. But drilling in a residential zone can have costs beyond environmental, health and safety factors. At least one local bank has stated that it would be "very hesitant" to issue a mortgage to a property if a well pad was within close proximity to that property.  Other local banks may have similar policies.  Thus the ordinance allowing residential drilling could potentially put a number of residential properties at risk of being unsellable due to an inability to procure the requisite financing for purchase.

In addition, many area banks will not grant mortgages to leased properties with the clause “Lease has priority over mortgage” or similar language contained in the lease. A search on the Butler County Deeds and Records website has turned up a number of residential leases with such language in Butler Township. This could ultimately have a great negative impact on the township's future growth for the reasons mentioned above. Leaseholders should check with their banks or lending institutions for details and to verify this information.

Finally, there may be those Butler Township residents who are concerned about residential drilling but don't know what they can do, or feel there is nothing they can do, to stop it. These people may be surprised to know that the power of law is on their side. Besides restoring zoning powers, the state Supreme Court's ruling on Act 13 has placed the rights to clean air and enjoyment of property, among other rights, on equal footing with the right to financial gain from one's mineral rights. One can still do the latter, but not at the expense of the former. Furthermore, a lawyer consulted about Butler Township's drilling ordinance stated that a zoning ordinance that allows drilling everywhere is in violation of the state constitution.  He said that municipal officials must by law enact zoning that protects the interests of all residents, not just leaseholders.

A couple years ago I attended a Butler Township commissioners' meeting and was surprised to see a large number of people there to protest a sports complex that had been proposed for their residential neighborhood. The level of organization was remarkable. The complaints and concerns – noise, bright lights, safety, property values – were the same as those I'd heard expressed in meetings elsewhere when shale-gas wells were being discussed. Could that level of organization and concern be brought to bear in the matter of residential well pads in Butler Township?

For those of us who are concerned about drilling in residential areas, the law is on our side. What is lacking is the organization and mobilization of concerned residents. Could we perhaps remedy that situation? Soon? Before the next residential drilling site is approved by Butler Township commissioners?  

j.p.m.

  But it seems that people are starting to realize the full scope of this power grab.  In July the Commonwealth Court declared the zoning provision of act 13 unconstitutional. The PA Association of Township Supervisors has come out in opposition to the provision. So have over 65 local governments including four in Butler County.  When the PA Utility Commission (PUC) withheld close to $1,000,000 in impact fees in an apparent retaliation against the municipalities who challenged Act 13 in court, the Commonwealth Court again had to rein in big government by issuing a “cease and desist” order and declaring that the PUC has no authority to review local gas drilling ordinances.

The Corbett administration, the general assembly, and state agencies have overstepped their bounds time and time again by putting the profits of oil companies over the people and the laws of the Commonwealth and I for one am happy that the courts are rolling back their power grab.

J.M.B.