Tuesday, December 1, 2015 the Upper Makefield Board of Supervisors unanimously passed their version of the shale gas drilling moratorium resolution. This will be used to give weight to our appeals to the Delaware River Basin Commission and the PA Legislature to permanently ban fracking in the Delaware Basin.

Now all three townships that comprise the zoning jointure have passed such ordinances. Their Solicitor has the Riverkeeper’s guide book for drilling ordinances and also the guide for pipeline zoning.  With these tools it should be possible to craft zoning ordinances that give the maximum protection to air and water quality and the environment generally. Although there is no urgency to act quickly, it is crucial to invest the time to get a good ordinance in place as a fall-back should efforts to ban fracking fail.

Every resident of Bucks County should be respectfully working to make sure that Supervisors take the next steps.

In addition to the resolution, and drilling and pipeline ordinances, we anticipate that innovative lawyers will be offering bold strategies for townships to protect their citizens from the worst abuses of the shale gas industry. To get an idea what shape this might take visit Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF.org)