06/15/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting Minutes 6-15-09 Page 28 Senator Grendell replied in our Bill, we actually require a water study if you are on non- city water. A water study would be submitted with your application. In one version that we have suggested, we have posed that we can't give you total power, that they would come to you. When the permit application is made, it would be then sent to the community in the city or village or township. They would have so many days to state their concerns and objections and then ODNR would have to address those concerns before they could issue the permit. That may be where we end up here. That seems to be the middle ground on what we are talking about. Mayor Rinker asked, any kind of administrative review other than someone behind a desk behind a closed door, like quasi-judicial proceedings like they do at liquor control? Senator Grendell said, yes, it would be an appeal then. Let's say if the concerns were not met, there could be an appeal to, he can't remember the technical name, it's the oil and gas part. We also need to fix the membership on the gas board because it's all oil and gas people. We need to make them a little bit of a fair appellate court. If we can't give you total control, we need to give you meaningful input and some ability to appeal if that well is going to still be obj ectionable. One of the proposals back from ODNR, and this is a very fluid give and take negotiation still going on with Senator Niehaus and ODNR, one of the suggestions was a suggestion that you could state your objection and as long as you could pick where within the 20 acres the well could go, as long as the well was allowed, you could pick where, you the local community could pick where the 20 acres go. This goes contrary to the ODNR statement that this has nothing to do about the fee income. Senator Grendell will publicly tell you, he thinks this has a lot to do with their fee income. When he sees 1388 wells get approved out of 1400, he does have a concern. Their response is they don't care about to a degree local control as long as it doesn't limit the number of wells that ultimately would be drilled. Ultimately you would be responsible for where the 20 acres are that the well goes. That has been thrown back as a compromise. Mayor Rinker said we have gone through that exercise. Council President Buckholtz said it doesn't work well. Senator Grendell said to him maybe in a certain neighborhood you don't want to have any drills there. Mayor Rinker said that's what we found out. Senator Grendell said you will be getting this. We are not quite finished yet, but when we get it done, we will get you a comparison chart of the two Bills and a chance to weigh in over the summer. We won't really get into this thick and heavy again until September is Senator Grendell's guess.