Leaders support impact fee

BY STACI WILSON

The Susquehanna County Commissioners solicited opinions from municipal leaders, March 6, before moving forward with imposing the state’s impact fee.

Over 100 people attended the special meeting Tuesday morning in Montrose to get information about Act 13, the Unconventional Gas Well Impact Fee Act.

The law imposes a $50,000 fee on each natural gas well drilled inPennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale but requires county level approval (or majority municipal approval) for municipalities to collect its part of the tax monies.

Allocated funding to various state agencies and programs will come off the top of the impact fee revenue.

Sixty percent of the remaining funds will be distributed at the local level. Of that money, counties with wells will receive 36 percent; municipalities with wells receive 37 percent and municipalities without wells get 27 percent of the revenue.

Commissioner Alan Hall said, “We’re either in and get it or out and not get it.”

“I don’t think it’s a great bill but there are provisions to get money into the county and municipalities,” Hall said.

The fee will be collected at the state level by the Public Utility Commission and dispersed to local governments on a timeline written into the law.

Hall said, “It’s a lot cleaner if we do it at the county level.”

Hall asked for a show of hands at the meeting of those attending who were opposed to the impact fee.

Lathrop Twp. supervisor Paul Himka was one of about three people who expressed concern with the law.

Himka said he was hesitant about it based on language in the law that pertained to county and municipal responsibility for surface and subsurface water supplies.

“With that one item alone the potential burden could outweigh any benefit,” Himka said.

Brooklyn Twp. supervisor Morgan Turner, who also works with the gas industry, said that Cabot Oil & Gas has already put about $80,000 in the township’s roads for repair, maintenance and upgrades on a handshake agreement.

He said that with the imposition of the impact fee, roads would still be repaired by the gas companies but felt the more expensive upgrades would not be in the future.

But Turner said, he would back whatever the county decides.

And roads were of top concern for many of the township supervisors at the meeting.

Commissioner Michael Giangrieco said he had spoken with a number of supervisors and gas companies about the issue.

“It’s a misconception that if there is an impact fee (the gas companies) won’t fix the roads,” Giangrieco said. “They can’t do that.”

He said the townships still have the ability to bond the roads and enter into road maintenance agreements.

“The gas companies have spent millions on roads in the whole county. That’s not going to go away,” he said. “They intend to honor the bonds and the road maintenance agreements.”

He said he was assured by Cabot Oil & Gas – which has concentrated its production efforts inSusquehannaCounty– they plan to keep their road agreements.

Cabot’s Janice Lobdell confirmed the statement. She said the company wanted to see the fee benefit the municipalities.

She said Cabot has spent $18 million on roads and “that commitment is going to continue.”

Giangrieco said he had crunched prospective revenue numbers for some of the townships.

He said, for example, that based on wells right now in Auburn Twp., the impact fee generated would be $523,000.

Of that money,Auburnwould receive 50 percent of its annual budget or $500,000 – whichever is greater.

Because the fee is assessed when the permit for the well is issued, the $23,000 paid overAuburn’s cut would be used to fund the money paid to municipalities without wells and the Marcellus Legacy fund.

One way impact fee revenue can be used by the county and municipalities is to reduce property taxes – a measure both Hall and Giangrieco seemed to support.

Giangrieco said, “A lot of people are not going to benefit much, if at all, from natural gas drilling. They can be helped by reducing taxes.”

With the majority of municipal leaders attending the meeting in favor of the measure, Giangrieco said the next step would be for the commissioners to vote to advertise the ordinance at the March 14 meeting.

The ordinance must be adopted by April 14 if the county planes to enact the impact fee in order to receive revenues this year.