EQT believes it has found a way to keep drawing natural gas from a roughly $60 million fracking site in Elizabeth Township, despite a court ruling against the operation and amid resident concerns over the project’s proximity to the local high school. The permitting fix involves splitting the property into separate lots — one including the fracking operation.
The project’s future now sits with the township commissioners, who have 45 days to approve or deny a permit following a 3-hour conditional use hearing on Tuesday, where residents voiced concerns over the possible environmental and health impacts of a project less than a half-mile from the Elizabeth Forward High School.
“I’m ashamed of everybody here. We don’t give a damn about any of our kids,” Fred Bickerton, an Elizabeth Township resident, said at the hearing. “We know that [gas] wells have catastrophic failures. How the hell do we get our kids away from the school if there is one?”
An approved permit would represent a second, and potentially final, bite at the apple for the company and its six-well Heracles operation. The project has been at the center of a three-year legal battle that pitted the company and township commissioners against local environmental advocacy group Protect Elizabeth Township (PET). Litigation hasn’t slowed production at the site, which has been producing gas without a local permit for over a year.
Residents voice safety, environmental concerns
PET, a non-profit, originally formed to oppose a planned natural gas power plant in the community’s Buena Vista neighborhood. When those plans were scrapped in 2023, the group turned its focus to fracking.
Scott Taylor, the group’s president and an Elizabeth Township resident, said PET’s concerns center around the project’s environmental consequences and the health impact on the roughly 760 students who attend the high school near the Heracles operation.
“It’s about the health, safety, welfare of the vulnerable: the children in the school. They’re there all day long. Not because they want to, but because they have to. They’re trapped in a building 1,700 feet from a known cause of harm,” Taylor said.
Sandra Hearn is a former teacher at the high school and PET member. Her home is located northwest of Heracles and the high school.
“That’s just the things you can see: The dirt and dust and all that. What can I not see? That’s the problem,” she said. “There are no walls that stop the particulates that are in the air.”
Eight people spoke in opposition to the project on Tuesday. Russell Verbanec was the lone voice in favor of the project, pointing to his own lower natural gas prices and other financial benefits for township residents.
“The overall benefit is more affordable natural gas. I don’t know what you’re going to run Western Pennsylvania on if you don’t have natural gas for heating and electricity,” he said in an interview, adding that township residents receive mineral royalties from the company.
Residents with mineral interests have received more than $8 million in royalties from the project, according to EQT legal filings. The company hosted an emergency response awareness training for local first responders in April.
Proximity to fracking operations has been linked to increased cancer risks, asthma attacks and low birth weight. Last year, four children who lived near EQT operations in northern West Virginia filed an ongoing lawsuit alleging that the company “knowingly” exposed them to carcinogens.
“What can I not see? That’s the problem.”Sandra Hearn, Resident & PET Member
State Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware County, introduced legislation last year that would prevent unconventional drilling within 5,000 feet of a school, versus the current buffer of 500 feet. It’s based on recommendations from a 2020 grand jury report on shale and natural gas drilling, which was convened by then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro, now the governor. The bill was referred to committee in November.
In response to commissioner questions regarding the safety of the site, EQT Emergency Response Advisor Scott Held said it has an existing emergency response plan and other safeguards in place. He said he couldn’t say with 100% certainty that a hypothetical explosion at the site would have no impact on the school.
“EQT, they’re a big company. But you’ve got to stand up,” Hearn said. “If something goes wrong on that well pad … who is it going to blow back on?”
The township commissioners unanimously agreed with solicitor Matt Racunas in denying party status to PET members at Tuesday’s hearing, meaning those individuals weren’t allowed to cross-examine EQT witnesses.
A court loss, and a work-around
PET brought an initial lawsuit against the township in 2023, shortly after commissioners approved a conditional use permit for the project’s then-owner, Canonsburg-based Olympus Energy Holdings and its subsidiary, Hyperion Midstream LLC.
The company and its subsidiary had applied for two permits: for the well pad and an interconnect hub, which connects natural gas operations to a pipeline. Conditional use permits are specialized zoning authorizations that allow property owners to use their lands in ways not permitted by right in their zoning districts. In this case, the companies applied for permits to start fracking operations in a residential district zoned for single-family homes.
The project leases land from two local families. The wells started producing natural gas in April 2024, according to EQT legal filings.
The lawsuit was ultimately decided in PET’s favor in June 2025. A state appellate court threw out the original conditional use permit. It ruled the township violated its zoning regulations when it approved the project, because the Heracles operation sits on a parcel that also contains a single-family home. Elizabeth Township’s zoning ordinance prohibits natural gas operations as “principal structures” on lots that also contain single-family dwellings, according to the ruling.
Hearn said that she was feeling hopeful after the appellate court ruled in PET’s favor, though that feeling soon subsided.
EQT, the country’s second-largest natural gas producer, purchased Olympus’ assets for $1.8 billion a year ago. EQT appealed the Commonwealth Court decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. That appeal was denied in February.
While awaiting the appeal, EQT came back to the township with a new plan that it said alleviated the “principal structure” issue: It would subdivide the property into separate lots. The natural gas operation would now sit on a lot separate from the family home on the parcel, which means they wouldn’t exist on the same lot.
The township approved the subdivision plan in September.
PET and its lawyer, Peters Township-based municipal attorney John Smith, are challenging the subdivision in court, arguing the company didn’t conduct the studies required under the township’s zoning law. The suit also argues that the township approved the subdivision in spite of “numerous errors” of the town’s zoning ordinance, because it places the interconnect and well pads — two separate principal structures — onto one lot.
The township has joined the lawsuit in support of EQT. The township directed Pittsburgh’s Public Source to Racunas for comment on the Heracles project. He declined to comment on the pending litigation Tuesday.
“My feeling is they thought we would stop, because they think they can make us go broke,” Hearn said. “They’re just trying to bleed us dry because they know our funds are not limitless like theirs.”
Gas flow continues amid ‘legally complicated’ permit landscape
In the midst of the litigation, EQT has been producing gas at the site. A lot of it.
From April 2024 to April 2026 (the most recently reported production month) the site produced just over 35.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The average American home consumes between 160 and 195 cubic feet of natural gas per day.
“Simply put, our execution machine is firing on all cylinders,” EQT Chief Executive Officer Toby Rice said in a statement accompanying an earnings announcement shortly after its acquisition of Olympus’ assets.
EQT’s spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Ryan Dailey, a witness for EQT at the conditional use hearing and an engineer with Civil & Environmental Consultants, described the operation as currently “very passive.” The site is currently in its production phase, with only a few trucks moving in and out of the site weekly.
PET has filed a lawsuit to halt production at the site entirely, alleging it is “unauthorized.” According to PET’s filings in the case, any ongoing production at the site runs afoul of Elizabeth Township’s municipal code, because local zoning law forbids oil and gas production without a conditional use permit.
The lawsuit asks the courts to halt the project because the township has “no means to enforce unauthorized activity at the site.” EQT argues that any court-ordered work stoppage at the site would infringe upon the landowner’s property rights.
There is an initial evidentiary hearing in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas scheduled for the case on July 10.
Joshua Ash, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and the director of the school’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, called the situation in Elizabeth Township “legally complicated.”
There are two primary bodies governing oil and gas production in Pennsylvania: the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and municipalities such as Elizabeth. Zoning and environmental permitting are two separate systems, Ash said. The well pad is permitted by the DEP, according to DEP records.
Ash said that there is a “mismatch of influence” between the state DEP and “little, meager, poorly-funded” municipalities with regard to their ability to halt natural gas operations at a site. Without professional day-to-day staff, municipalities often lack the ability or desire to enforce their own zoning regulations for large-scale projects like natural gas wells, he said.
“Any time you see an appellate court saying something and you see it being ignored, that’s a rule of law concern, in my opinion, that everybody should be thinking about and could impact anybody down the road.”
JOshua ash, University of Pittsburgh SChool of Law
In Pennsylvania, the township’s zoning enforcement officer is responsible for enforcing zoning regulation. The zoning office identifies a violation and issues a written enforcement notice. The landowner has 30 days to appeal the notice to the townships’ five-member zoning hearing board.
The zoning hearing board is quasi-judicial, Ash wrote, meaning it adjudicates issues but has no enforcement powers. If the notice isn’t appealed, the violation becomes “conclusively established,” he wrote.
Actual enforcement — like fines or court orders — has to happen in court, Ash wrote.
Rob Vitous, the township’s zoning officer, didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding any violations at the site.
“Any time you see an appellate court saying something and you see it being ignored, that’s a rule of law concern, in my opinion, that everybody should be thinking about and could impact anybody down the road,” Ash said.
PET’s attorney John Smith sent a letter to both the DEP and the township asking them to halt operations at the site. He did not receive responses from either, according to case filings.
A DEP spokesperson acknowledged but did not respond to a request for comment.
“All those high school students, you think they’re not sitting back realizing they can break the rules and have no accountability?” PET member Laura Haney said in an interview.
Blaine Lucas, an attorney representing EQT, said at the hearing that the company doesn’t “necessarily agree” with PET’s position that the company no longer has an approval for the conditional use. He said the company believes the subdivision approval remedies the “only deficiency” that the appellate court ruling identified and the company applied for the conditional use permit “in the interest of thoroughness.”
When asked what she’d prefer on the site, Hearn said she would like to see a housing development. Like much of the Mon Valley, Elizabeth Township’s population has declined over the last 50 years since the collapse of the steel industry. Its population is down nearly 20% since 1970, hovering at around 12,500, according to census records.
“Every year, we have less and less students … it’s not a community anymore,” Hearn said. “No one wants to move here. We don’t have a community. What do we have to offer?”
Lucas Dufalla is the Southern Communities reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at lucas@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Feixu Chen.
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