PETERS TWP — By a margin of more than four-to-one, voters in an affluent Pittsburgh suburb say natural gas drilling can go on in their township.

In Tuesday’s general election, nearly 5,200 Peters Township voters rejected a referendum that would have barred drilling, compared with just over 1,100 who voted for a ban.

About 2,400 people signed ballot petitions circulated by the Peters Township Marcellus Shale Awareness group to put the referendum on the ballot. The question withstood a Washington County Court of Common Pleas challenge last month.

Township officials had opposed the measure, saying an ordinance passed in August already restricts natural gas drilling to a small fraction of township parcels, and limits environmental impacts and noise.

“This has been one of the most contentious and divisive elections in all my experience in the township, on and off council,” township council Chairman Robert Atkison said. “I hope, now, we can all get over that and take on the real issues facing the township.”

Township officials said the drilling ban would have invited lawsuits by property owners who wanted to lease their land to drillers, and perhaps by the drillers themselves. The August ordinance limits drilling to parcels 40 acres or larger, restricts access to certain roads and requires buffers between wells and various structures, including homes.

A similar measure in the city of Warren, in northwestern Pennsylvania, was also defeated 1,316 to 795. That referendum not only called for a drilling ban, but would have banned the treatment, storage or transportation of drilling wastewater in the city.