A request to place an oil well site behind the Quail Run subdivision in Newcastle met with resistance from area neighbors, but was eventually approved by the City Council.
A lengthy discussion by council members was followed by an open public discussion where several Newcastle residents said they were opposed to the well’s placement at the north side of S.W. 16th Street, approximately 2,000 feet east of S. Rockwell Avenue.
The Council eventually decided that all setback requirements had been met by Sevier White/Four Point Energy to grant a Use Permitted On Review (UPOR), which allows the company to drill four directions from the new pad site.
The UPOR request had been previously approved by the Newcastle Planning Committee. Their approval, however, was based on receiving an opinion from City Attorney Jeff Bryant, who said he believed all three setback requirements have been met During the Council meeting, Bryant said there had been an opinion made by an attorney representing a Newcastle resident. Attorney Cooper Hahn was in attendance at the Council meeting, and voiced his and his client’s opposition to wording of one of the setback requirements.
Hahn said he believes the terminology from the third setback requirement on protected use dealing with measuring from the oil bore to “the lot line of a previously platted subdivision,” is not being followed by the City.
Bryant said Hahn’s opinion was a reasonable interpretationoftheordinance, but then he believes his own opinion is a reasonable interpretation as well, and the opinion is up to the council’s discretion.
“If the council feels like the application meets the intent, then they can actually modify those distances and do that in terms of this ordinance,” Bryant said. “It is the council’s discretion to take a look at this and decide whether or not if they feel like this application meets the ordinance’s intent.
Mayor Karl Nail said, “We developed what we thought were reasonable setbacks that would allow companies to go in and get their oil and gas. We’ve done everything we can to make it less intrusive to our neighbors.”
Nail said the intent was to protect the structures and other protected uses, but if the ordinance was read the way Hahn believes it is intended, there would be no way for an oil and gas company to place a well in the city limits
“If the argument was to prevail on setback requirements (as Hahn believes), there would be no location in the City where a well could locate,” Nail said
He later added that if the ordinance was read that way, the oil and gas companies would not be able to drill anywhere in the city on an 80-acre tract
Council members Nail, Gene Reid and Mike Fullerton voted to approve the UPOR, while Marci White voted against its approval, and council member Tommy Clay was absent from the meeting.
Both council member Gene Reid and Nail said they believe the ordinance wasn’t as clear as maybe it should be, but their intent was still there
White said, “In my opinion we need to look at that (the ordinance language) and see if we need to reword it.”
She told the Newcastle Pacer, “I can only go with what the law says, and my personal thinking is the intent needs to be put into words. No one purposefully left this out, it’s very difficult to write these ordinances. I don’t want our citizens to think we base our actions out of fear from a lawsuit. I make decisions based on what I believe the law says.”
