The Concerned Citizens for Safe Air and Water were formed by Kathy Cash, Sandra Fallon, Alice Meehan, Ann Payne, Catherine Tall out of concern for the Marcellus shale drilling permits at the Morgantown Industrial Park. They organized a large meeting at the Morgantown High School on Friday night, May 20th. The attendees divided up into 5 committees – one of which was the legal committee chaired by Kitty Lozier and Duane Nichols. I was unable to attend the meeting at MHS. The legal committee was interested in finding out how the cities of Pittsburgh, Buffalo and other locations had adopted their bans against shale gas extraction. They learned that the technical assistance had been provided to each of these city councils by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. The program director responsible for the ban ordinances was Ben Price. Price was familiar with the Wellsburg ordinance and has been working with the Pocahontas County citizens in WV as well. Kitty and Duane were able to set up a conference call with Ben Price and with the some of the rest of the committee members at 2 p.m. on Thursday, May 26. The legal committee asked Jenny Selin and me to join them because of our council activity in support of the resolutions that I drafted before the previous City Council Meeting on May 17. During the first conference call Price offered to draft an ordinance and to come to Morgantown to speak in its support. The committee members on the call were pleased with his offer. Nichols offered to coordinate the arrangements. A second call was set up for May 27 at 4 p.m. in which I was unable to participate. Late Thursday afternoon I did, however, call the City Manager and asked him to place the consideration of an ordinance “protecting public health, public safety and public welfare” on the agenda for the May 31 Committee Of The Whole Meeting – even though at that time (because Chambersburg services being disabled by the violent storm earlier Thursday), we had not yet received a copy of the draft. The first draft became available for the 4 p.m. Friday call. I received my draft about 8 p.m. that evening when I returned home (May 27). On Saturday a.m. I made several calls (which were difficult to complete due to the holiday weekend), and then called Price back on Monday (May 30) noon with some recommended changes and corrections that had been suggested by different persons. I received a copy of the revised draft that would be presented at the meeting by Councilor Selin late Monday evening. All of this push was deemed necessary because of the state of the drilling plans and preparation on the drill site across the Mon river. Waiting a month until the June COW made no sense at all to anyone on the committee. I was unable to contact Mayor Byrne throughout the weekend and finally after consultations with Councilor Selin did sent out the copy of the proposed ordinance to the full Council at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I did not consult with the City Manager before sending out the material to the Council. But copies of the email and the ordinance were sent to Terrance Moore and Jeff Mikorski simultaneously with the 9 a.m. Council mailing. The names of the persons on the original conference call on May 26 were as follows: Kitty Lozier, League of Women Voters Jenny Selin, City Council Member Don Spencer, City Council Member and Deputy Mayor until June 30 Linda Shuster, Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition Robert Bastress, Professor, WVU College of Law Evan Hansen, Environmental Consultant, Downstream Technologies Duane Nichols, Monongahela Area Watersheds Compact Members of the legal committee of the Concerned Citizens for Safe Air and Water hosted Price and paid for his travel and lodging from Chambersburg, PA. Don Spencer, Morgantown City Council
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THE DRAFT ORDINANCE, ATTACHED, WAS INTRODUCED TO CITY COUNCIL IN THE "COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE" THIS PAST TUESDAY. AFTER EXTENDED DISCUSSION IT WAS "FORWARDED TO RESEARCH" RATHER THAN BEING "FORWARDED TO THE AGENDA FOR THE UPCOMING COUNCIL MEETING ON JUNE 7TH. THREE OTHER RESOLUTIONS HAVING TO DO WITH THE MARCELLUS DRILLING WERE "FORWARDED TO THE AGENDA" FOR THE JUNE 7TH MEETING, ONE OF WHICH WAS A BAN ON DRILLING WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS AND EXTENDING OUT ONE MILE PATTERNED AFTER THE WELLSBURG (wv) BAN ON SUCH DRILLING. Mayor Bill Byrne says that the CELDF ordinance (attached) has a very weak legal foundation, and is no consistent with State law. Ben Price of the CELDF says that the Wellsburg ban has a weak foundation and can be easily overturned in the future. We shall see if anything gets done in future City Council meetings.