06/15/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting Minutes 6-15-09 Page 23 Township where Senator Grendell lives had a 700 foot rule from a well to a resident. Various communities dealt with oil and gas the way they wanted to deal with it. The one basic thing was no one was drilling oil and gas wells 100 feet from people's houses. Generally speaking, oil and gas wells were not allowed in residential neighborhoods as a result of local zoning. Senator Grendell fought House Bi11278 for months when it was in Committee because he had been an oil and gas exploration lawyer in his early life. He understood the process and could never fathom why we would want to be putting oil and gas wells in residential neighborhoods. He never had a problem with putting them in industrial areas if they were in the right place away from homes or stick it in the farms. There's places for oil and gas wells. Putting them in residential neighborhoods is a real problem. When the Bill was coming out of Committee, he had it blocked for months and then one of the representatives from Lakewood crossed over. The day that happened, Senator Grendell tried to exempt residential areas from the State control. He left it at local control. He lost that by one vote. He then moved for the 300-foot rule. He lost that by one vote in Committee. Then he went to at least let the local government control the buffering and the screening so that if you are going to get stuck with these wells, you could require board on board fencing and nice trees and things to try to at least hide their long-term impact in the residential areas. Senator Grendell lost that by one vote. Since that time, Northeast Ohio has been cursed, or blessed, depending on how you see it, with the proliferation of oil and gas wells and in fact 63 alone just in Gates Mills since 2009 and well over 500 in his Senate district since 2005. It has continued to be a major source of concern for Senator Grendell. Senator Grendell continues to try to find a way to get some legislation through to try to give you back some of the control over the oil and gas because the problem with House Bi11278 on its face seeks to preempt local zoning control over oil and gas wells and leave it in the hands of the Department of Natural Resources. That's a problem. At the time, they said, well no, don't protect the local communities. We had our doubts. At the time, Senator Grendell was actually working with Mayfield Heights. They filed a lawsuit trying to challenge this. They eventually abandoned the lawsuit when it became clear the Cotut was going to go the wrong way and we did not want to create that law. Subsequently when Mayfield Heights tried to deal with the noise problem, because as you may now know, when you start drilling an oil and gas well, it's a 24/7 proposition. They don't turn off the well when it is time to go home, they keep drilling until they axe finished. That becomes a noise problem for people in residential areas. When Mayfield Heights attempted to enforce the noise ordinance, they were informed by the Department of Natural Resources and the State Attorney General's office that they would be sued for violating the powers of ODNR under House Bi11278. Then in December af 2007, there was an incident in Bainbridge Township in Geauga County where an oil and gas well was drilled. It was improperly drilled. The annulus, which is