The Pocahontas County Commmission took heed from a large gathering of county residents Thursday evening, voting 3-0 not to place a Marcellus shale gas drilling referendum on the ballot.

For more than two hours, commission president David Fleming facilitated a discussion among the capacity crowd gathered in the upstairs courtroom of the Pocahontas County Courthouse.

At the outset of the meeting, Fleming said the commission was considering a ballot measure as a "nonbinding referendum" on the issue. Such a referendum would not have any legal implications for county residents and landowners, said Fleming, but it would help the commission gauge residents' feelings about drilling and if the commission should attempt to take action to regulate the industry at the local level.

The overwhelming majority of those who spoke voiced their opposition to putting the issue on the ballot for the May primary or November general election.

This opposition was widely shared among those on either side of the drilling debate. Several who spoke saw the ballot initiative as the first step on a course toward a county zoning ordinance and restrictions on property rights. Others felt that an issue as complicated as Marcellus shale gas drilling could not be adequately addressed through a single yes-or-no question on a ballot. Some also worried that making it a ballot question would politicize the issue, leading to a deeply divisive advertising campaign-possibly attracting the attention and money of outside drilling interests--as either side vied to sway voter sentiment.

Prior to opening the floor to public comment, each of the three commissioners took a moment to give their perspectives on the issue.

Fleming gave a recap of December's special legislative session in Charleston that produced the state's latest regulations of the industry. The commissioner spent much of that session at the capitol himself, speaking with legislators and running into several fellow Pocahontas County residents who were there to do the same.

While Fleming said he felt much of the bill could have been stronger, he and other Pocahontas County residents were successful in getting the House of Delegates to include "a small bit" of language requiring the Department of Environmental Protection and the state geologist to "establish standards for drilling horizontal wells in naturally occurring karst terrain."

The concern among many Pocahontas County residents is that the karst, limestone geology found in much of the county can provide a direct pathway for spills and chemical contaminants to enter the aquifers people depend upon for their drinking water.

Turning back to the ballot issue, Fleming said he would ask a "very simple, direct" yes-or-no question: "Do you favor Marcellus shale drilling in Pocahontas County?"

"If the voters say that they do favor Marcellus shale drilling-which is to say, we don't want the Pocahontas County Commission to try to regulate it-then I feel it would be appropriate for us as a commission not to try to pass any further ordinances or resolutions on the matter," said Fleming.

However, if a majority of voters responded "no" to the question Fleming said he "would take that as a request by the majority of voters to continue as a commission to pursue some sort of regulation of Marcellus shale drilling for Pocahontas County. "

Commissioner Martin Saffer said he doesn't see the issue as pro-drilling or anti-drilling. Instead, he sees two sides-one focused on clean water, the other focused on property rights and the county's business climate. In the end, Saffer said he did not see those two sides at odds with one another.

"There's a translation problem here," said Saffer, "and I think that has gotten us all off track, because love of clean water and property rights are totally consistent with one another."

"The people who have been maintaining the county for years and years and decades and generations have been excellent stewards of their water and their property and their property rights," Saffer continued. "So there's nothing inconsistent with that position and wanting to have good, clean water."

Saffer said he also felt that if drilling comes to Pocahontas County, it will be "way in the future."

Any sort of survey-on the ballot or not-would be premature, said Saffer.

"We have a lot of time to educate ourselves and understand exactly what our feelings are," Saffer added. "Let's not get locked into positions where we feel that somehow we're antagonistic with one another, because we're not. People who love their property love clean water. People who want good business in the county want clean water. We're not against one another."

In the meantime, Saffer said the commission's role should be to continue offering opportunities to educate the county-and themselves-about the Marcellus shale gas industry.

Toward that end, commissioner Jamie Walker said while the commission has heard from experts in law, geology and water resources concerning the issue, he would like to invite representatives from the oil and gas industry and the laborers who run the drilling rigs or pour the casings to present their perspectives to the commission and county residents.

Walker said he recently spoke with "someone very high up in the gas industry" who has agreed to bring a team of people to address questions about the chemicals contained in drilling fluids, casings and concrete, the measures taken to contain spills on drilling sites and the threat of earthquakes caused by drilling and injection activities.

Walker added that he was willing to take questions in advance of such a presentation to submit to the industry representatives.

On the positive side of the drilling equation, Walker said he personally knows one contractor in the Richwood area, where gas field development is happening, who was on the verge of closing his business. The recent gas activity has turned his business around, said Walker.

"Now, he's hired about a half dozen people, and he says his business is the best it's been in the last 20 years," said Walker. "He's got about a five year deal with this company, building roads, clearing lots, hauling gravel."

"So it brought some jobs," said Walker. "Maybe not a lot, maybe not forever, but it brought a few."

Walker said the Boxley quarry in Mill Point has also seen an increase in business, providing gravel for well pads and roads, as a result of the nearby gas activity.

Opening the floor to questions, the commission heard from a cross-section of county residents, the vast majority of whom said they were opposed to putting the question on the ballot, or had concerns that a ballot issue was not the best way to address the matter.

Only three people spoke in favor of the ballot question. One of those was Laurie Cameron, of Hillsboro.

Cameron called Saffer's suggestion that residents were actually on the same page about clean water and property rights "a fantasy."

"I want to get on with the fight," said Cameron. "There are definite, strong, ideological interests bumping up against each other hard. We're talking about the ‘z' word-zoning."

"Let's remember, that if a gas field opens up... you have opened up an industrial zone," Cameron continued. "It may not have been done by the government. But it may have been done by the Chinese government, which is investing heavily in American gas companies. So not only are we a colony of Wall Street or Pittsburg, we're also a colony of China."

"If you want to have something on the ballot, that's a good place to have a fight," said Camoron.

The next step, Cameron said, would be to institute a zoning ordinance to "control the damage" from the industry.

Brynn Kusic, of Stamping Creek, said she was concerned about how a ballot question would be framed.

"I wonder if a better question would be... if drilling happens in the county, are you interested in the county government seeking further protections for the specific nature of our county," Kusic said.

"If drilling happens here, we want to have the best standards possible," she added. "I don't think we stand to lose anything-the value of the gas, whatever."

Rather than a ballot question, Sue Groves, of Hillsboro, said the commission would be better served to bring in an independent survey firm that would ask several questions of county residents and landowners and give the commission more detailed information to use in their decision making.

"I think you'd get a more representative result from a survey than you possibily can from an election," said Groves.

Walker agreed, noting that at best roughly 50 percent of the county's approximately 4,000 registered voters would likely make it to the polls.

"A fool's game" is how Jay Miller, of Hillsboro, characterized the ballot issue.

"No matter how you do it, you're going to take what has been a civil discourse and make it inherently political," said Miller. "Unless you're going to have a special election, just on this referendum issue, you're going to have to join it with the primary... or the general election... and then you only get the opinion of those people who are able to and motivated to go to the polls for the primary or the general election."

"It should be a survey and not a ballot issue," Miller added, "because you need to keep it out of the purely political arena, in order to make it objective-if it can be accepted as objective at all."

Kermit Friel, of Slaty Fork, said the commission would better serve the county to focus on infrastructure and assisting the county's small businesses.

Fred Burns, of Marlinton, asked the commissioners if they would support and promote gas drilling in the county if the voters said yes to the question as proposed by Fleming. He also questioned whether the commission has the authority to regulate commerce more stringently than the State of West Virginia.

Burns, like Friel, told the commission there were more pressing matters at hand.

"There are two big issues you ought to be devoting all your time to right now," said Burns. "Number one is jobs. Number two is education. Our board of education is about to lose $500,000. We might lose 16 teachers."

"The education of our children is more important than anything we can talk about right now," Burns said. "I don't want to get into all the environmental issues. I don't know whether I'm for drilling or against drilling, but I can tell you one thing: we cannot let our children and our grandchildren down. They have to be educated."

Charles Sheets, of Green Bank, echoed concerns raised by Saffer and Miller that putting such a question on the ballot would only serve to politicize the issue, divide county residents and attract the attention of outside interests.

"If we have a ballot issue here in Pocahontas County, can you imagine what the gas company people would come in and spend?" Sheets asked. "Could you see the signs littering the county?"

"Why start pitting people against each other here?" Sheets said. "We need to have a better feeling... more compassion. Let's not be antagonistic with one another."

With the commission's 3-0 vote to not place the issue on the ballot, commissioners said they were still committed to providing opportunities for county residents to learn more about the industry and what it could mean for the county, its economy, its land and its water resources.

Drew Tanner can be reached by e-mail at datanner@pocahontastimes.com