ORDINANCE - Amendment #1 - Moratorium on Oil-Gas Development

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Section 12-101. Recitals Incorporated by Reference. The above and foregoing recitals are incorporated in the Ordinance by reference. Section 12-102. Statutory Authority. This Ordinance is enacted pursuant to (1) the General Statutes of the State of North Carolina, Section 153A-121, which grants Lee County general ordinance -making power, (2) General Statute, Section 153A-123, which grants Lee County the authority to enforce its ordinances; (3) General Statute, Section 153A-340, which grants Lee County the authority to adopt zoning and development regulation ordinances to promote health, safety, morals, or the general welfare, including the authority to adopt temporary moratoria; (4) General Statute, Section 113-415.1, which addresses the County's ordinance -making powers related to oil and gas development; and (5) the Lee County Moratorium Ordinance. Section 12-103. Purpose. The purpose of the moratorium is to allow the Lee County Board of Commissioners time to: 1) complete the 2030 Land Use Plan; 2) review the Mining and Energy Commission's regulations and other state and federal regulations applicable to oil and gas development and mining in order to determine whether such regulations adequately protect the County and its citizens from the impacts of oil and gas development and mining; and, 3) develop standards and conditions to be implemented through a conditional use permit or other appropriate mechanisms to address any impacts that are not adequately addressed by applicable state and federal regulations. Section 12-104. Jurisdiction. This ordinance shall apply to all of Lee County except for those areas included with incorporated municipalities and their extraterritorial jurisdictions. Section 12-105. Definitions. The words and phrases defined in this Section shall have the following meaning when found in this Ordinance: (1) "Drilling" shall mean the sinking, penetrating, boring, or digging of a shaft or hole in the earth for any purpose. (2) "Gas" shall mean all natural gas, including casing -head gas, coal -bed methane, and all other hydrocarbons not defined as oil in Subsection (6). (3) "Horizontal Drilling" shall mean drilling at an angle greater than three degrees from vertical. (4) "Hydraulic Fracturing," or "Fracturing," or "Fracking" shall mean all stages of the treatment of a well by the application of hydraulic fracturing fluid under pressure that is expressly designed to initiate or propagate fractures in a target geologic formation to enhance production of oil or gas. (5) "Mining" or "Traditional Mining" shall have the same definition as that found under "Mining" in the Unified Development Ordinance in Appendix A on page A-41. (6) "Natural Features" shall mean the water resources, land resources, air resources, geologic resources, animal species, and plant species within a municipality's boundaries. (7) "Oil" shall mean crude petroleum oil and other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, which are produced at the well in liquid form by ordinary production methods, and which are not the result of condensation of gas after it leaves the reservoir.