Regarding Reid Joyce’s letter (“Pandering to big oil”, June 29).

The Middlesex Township board of supervisors is the governing body of the township. The supervisors are elected. The board enacts laws, or ordinances, that govern various activities.

The zoning hearing board conducts hearings and renders decisions on requests for variances and special exceptions to the zoning ordinance.

The zoning ordinance is not chiseled in stone and the supervisors have not made a major revision to it; rather, they have made a clarification as to what is permitted, and where, pertaining to drilling for natural gas.

With more than 77 percent of the land in Middlesex Township under a gas lease, the supervisors are not pandering to big oil. They are listening to the majority of the residents — including residents of Weatherburn Heights who have signed a lease with an energy company.

The writer and his small group have been told by Middlesex and Adams townships there is more danger from traffic on Route 228 running through the Mars School District, than from a well site almost a mile from the closest school.

The lawyer instrumental in overturning Act 13 put the control back in the hands of the townships, and the townships have spoken. The Department of Environmental Protection’s 500-foot setback from any structure stands.