OXFORD – The Oxford Village Board of Trustees has tabled a decision to adopt a nine-month moratorium on natural gas drilling after the Central New York Landowner’s Coalition threatened to sue them and the municipality if they did.
Oxford Mayor Terry Stark said notice of the potential legal action forced the board to set aside a vote pending review of the implications of such a lawsuit as well as the village’s current zoning code language for gas exploration, extraction and disposal.
“We need to make sure we are on solid legal grounds. It doesn’t kill anything; just allows time,” the mayor said after emerging with the board and the village’s attorney from a 30-minute executive session. The session was called during a special meeting held last night to take a vote on the proposed local law.
About 80 people attended the meeting in the Oxford Academy Middle School. The mayor changed the venue from the village hall Wednesday afternoon in order to accommodate the anticipated crowd. Police were present, and while the board met in executive session, an officer quieted one member of the audience after several people began speaking at once during an impromptu debate led by a moratorium supporter and village resident, Irving Wesley Hall.
Based on prior votes – to draft the new law (3 to 2) and to propose it (4 to 1) – and considering the mostly pro-moratorium sentiments expressed by residents who attended a public hearing on Nov. 13, trustees were expected to adopt the new legislation.
However, CNYLC’s representative and village resident Bryant LaTourette, given an opportunity to speak during an extended public comment session, gave the mayor a letter of intent “from the people” to “show that the moratorium is illegal.”
He stated that the pending local law had divided the community and originated from groups opposed to drilling without consideration for the potential economic development opportunities offered by the area’s largest mineral rights lease holder, Norse Energy. LaTourette suggested the village board and members of its Visions group take 45 days to engage Norse executives about the “huge opportunity from a business that wants to come here.”
“Norse Energy filed for Chapter 11 last week, but that means they are planning on restructuring,” he said. “This is a real business that needs no tax incentives and has already made an investment in us,” he said.
“I didn’t want to see this come to play, and I hope we don’t turn Oxford into the center of attention in New York, but most of the issues in this moratorium are already addressed by the SGEIS (the state’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on shale drilling),” he said.
The coalition’s landowners, who account for approximately 50 percent of the land held under natural gas drilling and pipeline right of way leases in the town of Oxford, were solicited earlier this week for contributions to a property rights protection fund that would be used to stand up to the village’s moratorium. All of the money raised to fight the case is to be collected from the landowners and other citizens with no industry involvement in funding, LaTourette said.
The village would have been the first municipality in Chenango County to signal its opposition to shale gas development should Gov. Cuomo and the state’s environmental regulators permit drilling and hydraulic fracturing next year. The governor and DEC Chief Joe Martens made clear this summer that municipalities’ sentiments about shale drilling would be taken into consideration once permitting begins. Several town boards in the southern part of the county where the Marcellus is thick enough to drill have debated moratoriums, but all have decided to defer to the state’s environmental conservation agency to regulate the industry.
Mayor Stark extended the public comment period to allow two residents representing both sides of the debate to address the board. Speaking first, Hall said the village’s awakening to the dangers of fracking inspired more than 1,000 residents of the town to sign petitions to ban hydraulic fracturing in all of Oxford. “That’s four times the number who vote in town elections,” he said.
“Our neighbors don’t want to lose their property rights. We’ve learned that the state can seize the land under our homes through eminent domain. Under the sinister new doctrine of compulsory integration, Albany can hand over our land to giant gas companies possibly to contaminate our water and air and pollute our children and animals.”
Hall said he was thankful to New York State for its “precious principle of Home Rule” that allows village and town boards to have zoning powers.
The village’s planning board recommended the moratorium this spring after making the decision to update 1970s era codes and draft a new comprehensive plan with language that addresses the issues surrounding natural gas drilling. Anna Stark, the mayor’s wife and a member of the planning board for 20 years, said the appointed body wasn’t trying to dictate whether or not to have a moratorium, but rather to implement road use agreements, and other environmental protections “in one square mile of Oxford.”