Judge Rules Seneca May Challenge Injection Well Ban in Elk County

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There is a new development in the case of an illegal ban on injection wells passed by Highland Township in Elk County, PA. In 2013 the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) convinced enough ignoramuses in Highland Township to pass a so-called Community Bill of Rights. Seneca Resources, a driller with leases and an active drilling program in Elk, had planned to drill an injection well on their own property to dispose of their own flowback and produced water. The CELDF-inspired ordinance Highland Twp prevented it, and Seneca threatened to sue the town (see Seneca Resources Threatens to Sue PA Town over Injection Well). Seneca made good and filed to sue, but the town and CELDF tried to prevent the lawsuit. Last week U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter ruled that Seneca has standing to sue and the lawsuit will now go forward. By the way, in October of 2015, Judge Baxter ruled in an almost identical case in Grant Township (located in nearby Indiana County) that the town’s injection well ban was illegal (see Fed Judge Overturns Grant Twp, PA Ban on Injection Wells). Even the dullards who enacted the ban in Highland should be able to see the writing on the wall. They’re about to lose. Taxpayers in Highland who are footing the bill (since the CELDF doesn’t pay for legal fees and judgments) are the biggest losers. They may want to remember that come election time…

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