Minutes - Oct 5, 2015 Reg. Meeting

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BK -00027 PG -0895 determine the adequacy of applicable State and federal regulatory programs in regulating and mitigating such impacts in Lee County's particular natural and man-made environment, and to consider enactment of any appropriate additional best management practices to properly address such impacts; and, (22) The Board further finds it necessary to provide for additional time to study the impacts, including financial impacts, on the County's roads and other infrastructure and services and to determine the financial damages that my result to the County, its citizens and residents; and; (23) The County has already initiated the process of revising and updating its land use plan to consider whether, and to what extent the impacts of hydraulic fracturing will impact zoning, and the appropriate zones in which such use is appropriate, which process is scheduled for completion in approximately months. Zoning for oil and gas development and developing standards for appropriate County permits should be done in coordination with this update of the zoning ordinance; WHEREAS, the Board of Commissioners of Lee County has considered the following actions to address the problems or conditions set forth above and found them to be inadequate: (1) The Board has considered taking no action as it relates to planning and zoning for hydraulic fracturing. However there are serious questions, for the reasons stated herein, whether the current state and federal regulations are adequate to protect the County's interests and the interests of its citizens, and, therefore, it is not in the best interest of the County to allow oil and gas development activities without further study and appropriate local regulation. (2) The county's Unified Development Ordinance does not, by itself, act as an adequate regulatory tool because it would either allow or not allow oil and gas development within designated zones without the necessary information regarding the location of the oil or gas reserves. Furthermore, in zones where it would be allowed as an industrial use, there must be standards specific to oil and gas development because of its highly unusual nature. This is a circumstance for which conditional use zoning may be appropriate to provide circumstance- and location -specific regulations to ensure the public health and the safety of the residents of Lee County are protected. (3) Other existing County ordinances generally applicable to development such as erosion and sedimentation control, water supply watershed regulations, setbacks and buffers regulate only specific, limited impacts and are not adequate to regulate the wide range of impacts of oil and gas development. (4) Establishing a permitting process for oil or gas development without thorough study would be premature and could result in standards that are inadequate to regulate or mitigate the local impacts, or that are unnecessarily stringent and might be subject to legal challenge as preempted by the state regulatory programs. The state regulatory program was finalized very recently and is currently subject to legal challenge. More time is needed for Lee County to determine what conditions are necessary and reasonable to supplement the State programs without being subject to preemption.