Washington County
“At least one more workshop will be held to iron out some concerns that Washington County Planning Commission members have about the draft ordinance governing natural gas extraction in the county.
The issue has been under discussion for several years, and members of the Land Use Steering Committee voted in November to pass the draft ordinance on to the Planning Commission. The draft was introduced last spring to the steering committee. ‘We did look at this for two-plus years, and we’ve learned a lot,’ said commission member Bill Cantor, who served on the steering committee.
Planning commission members voted unanimously to work on the ordinance at least once before passing the draft on to the Washington County Board of Supervisors, which ultimately will decide whether to enact the ordinance. The draft outlines the area where gas can be drilled, an area designated for agriculture south of the North Fork of the Holston River, and includes much of Rich Valley Road. It also outlines preliminary environmental studies to be conducted and the requirements for companies to get a special exception permit to operate a gas well in the county.
Some of concerns to be addressed by the commission are what the cost of the special exception permit application should be, whether companies should have some kind of pollution insurance and what control the county would have over policing the areas to be drilled, if applicable.”
~Writes Allie Robinson Gibson of the Bristol Herald Courier
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