In the past year, neighbors in the Adams and Middlesex township areas were divided over Marcellus Shale gas drilling.

In early March, Rex Energy offered the Mars School District a $1 million nonsurface gas lease, in which horizontal drilling would occur a mile beneath 150-plus acres of district land.

The lease was connected to the Bob and Kim Geyer farm on Denny Road, which is within one mile of the Mars schools. Six wells were planned for the farm.

A group of Mars parents plus several teachers protested the lease and the Geyer wells at a school board meeting because of potential health and safety hazards.

More than 200 people at a later meeting cheered when the school board voted to reject the lease for the district. District solicitor Tom King said that potential land title issues were the main reason for the no vote.

A contentious Middlesex supervisors meeting in March had residents stating their positions on shale gas drilling. In April the parents group wanted a two-mile zoning overlay placed around the schools to protect the district’s students and staff.

Such an overlay, they said, would prevent shale gas drilling.

The parents group fought for the overlay at Adams and Middlesex township meetings through the spring and early summer. In June, the Adams planning commission recommended the supervisors prohibit surface mining and unconventional gas drilling within 1,250 feet of any Mars school building.

A few weeks later, the Adams supervisors voted 4-1 against amending the zoning ordinance with the overlay.

In July, the parents met with the state Department of Environmental Protection and Rex Energy to discuss concerns about gas extraction operations close to the schools.

In August, the Middlesex supervisors approved an amendment to the zoning ordinance that specified where certain shale gas operations would be permitted. But the parents group and those who are opposed to drilling were unhappy with the amendment, saying some form of shale gas operation would be allowed in most of the township under the amendment.

The DEP in September issued five permits for the Geyer well pad and work began on Oct. 1 to build a road from Route 228 to the well on the Geyer farm.

But a challenge to the Middlesex amendment in mid-October by the Clean Air Council, a Philadelphia-based environmental group, caused all work on the Geyer site to stop until the challenge is resolved.

One lengthy hearing on the challenge took place Nov. 18, and another is scheduled for Monday.

Work cannot continue at the Geyer site until the challenge is settled.

Other gas actions

There was plenty of other activity this year regarding shale natural gas in other sections of Butler County.

In January, the Butler Township commissioners announced they would accept bids from drillers for nonsurface drilling under two township parks. On Feb. 5, XTO Energy offered a lease to the commissioners, who approved that in early March. The company already operated a well at AK Steel in Lyndora.

On Jan. 21, the Connoquenessing Township supervisors enacted an ordinance that set up zoning and operation rules for natural gas and oil drilling. A handful of residents loudly shared their opposition to drilling with the supervisors at that time.

The Lancaster Township supervisors on March 17 listened to residents concerns regarding a proposed well site on 3.6 acres off Saltworks Road. By that time, 10 wells were already in the township.

An April 7 Franklin Township supervisors meeting had 50 residents attend to learn more about a proposed XTO Energy well site off Election House Road. On Sept. 2, XTO withdrew a request for state Department of Environmental Protection permits to begin work on the well, but refiled them in September.

A well site on Meridian Road in Butler Township on May 20 caught fire, but a major calamity was avoided after the flames were quickly extinguished. Rex Energy officials said the hydrocarbon condensate that caught fire did not leak onto the ground, and the integrity of the wellheads was not affected by the fire.

MarkWest Energy announced at an Aug. 26 Lancaster Township meeting that an expansion project at the natural gas processing facility on Hartmann Road would nearly triple the plant’s processing capabilities.

Butler Township commissioners on Oct. 20 formed a 7-member advisory board on the topic of shale gas wells. They also authorized the township solicitor to prepare amendments to the Natural Gas and Oil Extraction Ordinance to restrict development on residential and commercially zoned properties.

The move was in response to wells planned for the Krendale Golf Course off Eberhart Road, although the amendments will not cover the golf course site because it was approved before the amendment was proposed.