Consideration of a Moratorium on issuing Gas Well Permits in the City of Corinth

At the last council session (May 6, 2010), at the end I requested that discussion of an ordinance to enact a moratorium on Gas Well Permits being issued be added to the May 20, 2010 Council Session agenda. I went so far as to poll the council - if at least 2 other council members agreed it would have to be put on the agenda per City Code 30.085(B). However, I was unable to get even one other council member to throw in on it - so it was up to the mayor and/or city manager to decide if that would be on the agenda.

Apparently one (or both) did decide to place it on the agenda - which I believe is very important for us to at least discuss. After the last month of discussions on the XTO request for a gas well permit, I felt that we should review our well permitting ordinance. During that review, it would be in the city's (and the residents') best interests to not allow any new permit requests.

The moratorium would be temporary and would have an appeals process in place. During the moratorium, council and staff would be working on any revisions necessary to the Gas Well Ordinance. We obtained a tremendous amount of technical information related to Gas Wells during the recent application process. It is very possible that this new information could have an impact on what our ordinance needs to say.

This moratorium would only apply to new gas well permits - the permit that XTO requested (and was denied) would not be subject to the moratorium. You might remember that we denied without prejudice, such that they (XTO) could reapply in light of what they learned in the original permit process.