MarkWest Tells Cecil Township It’s Time to Grant Permit

| | | | |

A long-running dispute between MarkWest and Cecil Township (in PA) may soon be resolved. Last May, MDN reported that MarkWest wanted to build a Marcellus Shale gas compressor station in Cecil Township (Washington County). They filed an application for a “special exception” to allow them to build the plant but were denied by the zoning board. MarkWest then filed a lawsuit in Washington County civil court (see this MDN story).

The lawsuit is due to go to mediation next week, but MarkWest said in a letter dated March 1 to the Cecil zoning board that the new Act 13 law recently passed means the zoning board’s decision of last year is now null and void, mediation is therefore not necessary, and that they (Cecil) should move forward with granting the permit.

Cecil Solicitor John Smith told supervisors Monday that MarkWest wrote a letter to the township demanding that the board issue a permit for a proposed natural gas compressor station to be located off state Route 980 near Coleman Road.

The request, he said, came in light of the state’s new Marcellus Shale law—Act 13, which was previously known as HB 1950.

MarkWest last year filed an appeal regarding Cecil Township zoning board’s denial of its special request to install a compressor station for Marcellus Shale gas.

“I wouldn’t say demanded. I’d say requested,” Chris Rimkus, special counsel for MarkWest, said of the letter Monday.

The letter, dated March 1, suggests that the township and MarkWest cancel mediation scheduled for March 14. It also requests “the board issue MarkWest a permit for the proposed facility, effective April 14, 2012; and the parties enter into a stipulation of dismissal, and request that the appeal be marked settled and discontinued.”*

Click on the link below to see a copy of the letter from MarkWest to Cecil Township.

*Canon-McMillanPatch.com (Mar 6, 2012) – MarkWest Asks Cecil for Compressor Station Permit