According to Murrysville’s solicitor, the town would face more legal peril from breaking leases with unconventional drilling companies, than it would from possible confusion over who ultimately owns the oil and gas rights it leased to them.
A little less than a year ago, Murrysville council members voted to enter a lease agreement with Olympus Energy for oil and gas rights thousands of feet beneath the town’s two largest parks. Part of residents’ opposition to the leases was a petition signed by about 175 people. Council also entered into a lease last year with Apex Energy for land beneath Kovalczik Park.
Last week, members of nonprofit environmental group Protect PT presented a second petition opposing the leases, with sufficient signatures to force a council vote.
Murrysville’s ordinances require council to take action on a petition within 60 days if it includes signatures amounting to 2% or more of registered voters. Protect PT’s petition was signed by more than 320 Murrysville residents.
“We believe a title search should have been done before leasing this property,” said Tom Pike, environmental policy advocate for Protect PT and a former Murrysville resident. Pike said he believes there are issues regarding ownership of the oil and gas rights and that Murrysville might not have been in a position to lease them.
Pike requested on behalf of petition signatories that Murrysville rescind all three leases, and suggested council could be opening the municipality to legal liability by letting them stand.
Murrysville Solicitor Wes Long agreed that a title search is an important part of the process, one that either was or should have been performed by the drilling companies.
“The quality of the title to the oil and gas is to be determined by Olympus or Apex,” Long said. “The only thing we warranted in the leases is that we weren’t receiving any revenue or royalties under any other leases connected to those properties. So there’s no liability on the municipality. It rests on the shoulders of the drilling companies.”
Council voted unanimously to deny the petition. Council President Dayne Dice was not present.
Long said council would be in greater legal jeopardy by breaking the contracts they signed last year, for which Murrysville has received more than $2 million.
“We signed leases, they paid us consideration, and there are binding contracts,” he said. “Additional damages could include any money the oil companies spent while relying on the leases.”
Access to the shale formations several thousand feet underground would originate at Olympus’ Poseidon well pad in Penn Township. There would not be a well pad or any construction happening at either park, Murrysville officials said.
In addition, fracking beneath Duff Park would take place only in the Utica shale formation, which is even farther underground than the Marcellus shale formations.