MIDDLESEX TWP — Rex Energy attorney Kevin Colosimo’s cross examination of resident Melissa Brown, who complained at Tuesday’s zoning board hearing that a natural gas pipeline is slated for her neighbor’s property, summed up the thoughts of many who support shale gas drilling in the area.

Colosimo asked Brown if she had signed a gas lease with Rex, which came with a cash signing bonus. Brown said she had.

“And when did you send the money back that you got?” Colosimo asked.

Brown replied that she didn’t send the bonus back.

“No further questions,” Colosimo snapped before taking his seat.

The dramatic flare ended the fourth session of the hearing at the township fire hall before about 75 people.

The hearing is the result of a challenge to a gas and oil amendment to the township zoning ordinance passed in August by the township supervisors.

Four township residents plus the Philadelphia-based environmental groups the Clean Air Council and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network are challenging the zoning amendment because it allows unconventional gas drilling operations in much of the township.

Attorneys from the township, Rex Energy and Mark West Energy Partners are supporting the amendment at the hearings.

The challenge caused a stoppage of the work on the five Rex Energy gas wells at the Bob and Kim Geyer farm on Denny Road, which a group of Mars School District parents have protested for a year because they say shale gas drilling operations would pose a health and safety hazard to the students in the nearby Mars schools.

Brown was called as a witness by Jordan Yeager, the Philadelphia attorney who is representing the challengers.

Upon Yeager’s questioning, Brown said that in December 2006 she bought the 7.8 acres across from the Forsythe Road home where she and her mother both grew up.

Brown, her husband and young daughter live at the home, where the family in May noticed that surveyors were staking the property next door.

When Brown learned that a 12-inch Mark West Energy Partners natural gas pipeline will be built 50 to 60 feet from her home on her neighbor’s farm, she worried about water well contamination, health issues, environmental impacts and the potential need for her family to evacuate if the pipe leaks or fails.

“I spend my life working so I can enjoy my home,” Brown said. “I want it to be a place where we can go to and be protected.”

She also is concerned about the fate of a line of oak trees near her home that she said are more than 100 years old.

She said cutting limbs for construction or driving heavy machinery on the roots could damage the trees.

“There is no value you can put on something that’s been there all those years,” Brown said.

She said the zoning ordinance provides no protection for residents from gathering pipelines.

“Those who have the rights-of-way (for the pipelines) receive a benefit, but those who have the burden are those whose properties adjoin those rights-of-way,” Brown said.

Colosimo asked Brown if she understood when she signed her subsurface gas lease in March 2012 with Rex Energy that the gas must be transported to market to be sold.

Brown said when she signed her lease, there was no mention of large pipelines being placed near two sides of her home.

The hearing will continue at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Middlesex fire hall.

The zoning hearing board members are George Born, Howard Morse, Brendan Ryan and alternate John Morgan.