MORGANTOWN — The Monongalia County Commission is warning Morgantown against trying to ban natural gas drilling beyond its municipal borders.

City Council is considering an ordinance to ban horizontal, deep wells within city limits and up to 1 mile beyond them. Conventional drilling would be allowed only under a city permit.

Commissioner Eldon Callen tells the Dominion Post that’s unconstitutional because municipalities can’t pass laws affecting land outside their borders.

He warned that the county would take legal action to prevent Morgantown and any other municipality from enforcing such an ordinance.

Mayor Bill Byrne contends that state law allows cities to extend their powers up to a mile outside corporate limits “if it is necessary to efficiently exercise those powers.”

“We had a responsibility and a legal right to do this,” he said, citing the need to protect both city residents and their water supply.

Callen, however, argues the city isn’t saying what specific power it’s trying to exercise and called its 1-mile range “arbitrary.”

“You can’t just draw a 1-mile circle around the town,” he said.

Morgantown is aiming to shut down a Marcellus shale drilling operation along the Monongahela River, within a mile of its water supply.

Charleston-based Northeast Natural Energy is currently sinking two wells on a high-profile, hillside site in the Morgantown Industrial Park. Any spills from that site could potentially enter the Monongahela River about 1,500 feet upstream from a drinking water intake.

City residents protested the project last month, but Northeast vice president Brett Loflin said the company is committed to environmentally sound operations.

It followed the state Department of Environmental Protection’s rules in obtaining permits for two wells, he said. After the protests, Northeast briefly shut down its operations and worked with DEP. The company accepted tighter restrictions to protect the river from possible contamination.

Loflin said Thursday that includes the use of a closed-loop system for drilling fluids, “which basically means we will be catching all of the fluids and cuttings produced in the drilling operation in steel tanks, with no wastes being diverted to a lined earthen pit.”

Northeast will also do additional pressure tests on its well casings to ensure their integrity and added a second emergency shut-off valve.

“These procedures are in addition to all of the other best-management practices we employ to ensure that we are operating in a safe and environmentally sound manner,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Residents, however, appear undeterred: City Council also passed a resolution this week asking the DEP to stop work at the site and any others within a mile of the city’s water supply.

It also asked DEP to stop issuing new permits for Marcellus wells within a mile of the city’s water supply.

DEP spokeswoman Kathy Cosco said the agency will review that request when it receives it.

“However, the laws that regulate drilling do not give the agency the authority to issue a cease operations order without a specific cause or incident,” she said.

 “The permitting process is where the law provides for addressing any potential circumstances before drilling begins.”

Across northern West Virginia, natural gas drillers are rushing to tap the vast reserves of the Marcellus shale field, which underlies much of Appalachia.

To reach the gas deposits, the companies use unconventional horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” technologies, in which millions of gallons of chemical-laden water are blasted underground to break up the rock and release the gas.  

The DEP spent the better part of 2010 developing a package of new drilling regulations for lawmakers to consider, but the last session ended without an agreement.

Last week, the Monongalia County Commission urged acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to call a special session and try again.

Morgantown is the second West Virginia city to attempt a ban on drilling and fracking within a mile of its municipal boundaries.

Wellsburg City Council passed a similar ordinance last month, citing concerns about the city’s drinking water supply.

It was not immediately clear whether Brooke County officials have challenged its authority.

Westover, also in Monongalia County, is also considering an ordinance, but it’s more conservative and would require drillers within a 1-mile buffer to present data proving the operations won’t harm residents.

Mayor Dave Johnson said Westover isn’t trying to shut industry down, “but we want to make sure it’s going to be safe.”