One month after a lawsuit between Seneca Resources of Houston and Highland Township, Elk County, was dropped in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, an appeal was filed on behalf of the Highland Township Municipal Authority, Citizens Advocating for Cleaning Healthy Environment, and the Crystal Spring Ecosystem, better known as the township water source, by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).
The motion, filed by CELDF attorney Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin on Sept. 12 reads “Notice is hereby given that Crystal Spring Ecosystem, Highland Township Municipal Authority, and Citizens Advocating a Clean Health Environment, Inc., defendant intervenor-applicants in the above named case, hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from the memorandum order denying their motion to intervene (March 29, 2016, Dkt. 44), the memorandum order denying motion for reconsideration of intervention (Aug. 16, 2016, Dkt. 86), the final order adopting stipulations and consent decree (Aug. 12, 2016, Dkt. 84), and the memorandum opinion denying reconsideration of consent decree (Aug. 16, 2016, Dkt. 87).”
The three entities filed for intervention in the case on Aug. 11, 2015, but the request was denied on March 29, as the supervisors at the time were actively defending the township’s Bill of Rights ordinance enacted in an attempt to stop Seneca from placing a wastewater injection well within a half-mile of the township water supply.
However, on April 26, a motion to reconsider the intervention was filed after comments made by then-newly appointed supervisor Glen Hulings indicated he was not in favor of keeping the ordinance. Hulings was appointed by Elk County President Judge Richard Masson on April 22 to fill the vacancy left by the death of former supervisor Paul Burton on Dec. 31, 2015.
The motion was thrown out on Aug. 16, just four days after the township signed a consent decree with Seneca, effectively ending the lawsuit without a judgment by U.S. District Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter.
The latest appeal was filed just three days prior to a complaint filed by the Highland Township Supervisors in the Elk County Court of Common Pleas against the county board of elections in an attempt to have the Home Rule Charter referendum removed from the ballot in the November general election.
The supervisors claim government study commissioner Judy Orzetti did not have paperwork filed correctly with township secretary Christy Reigel, and vice-president Lloyd Hulings’ 1998 first-degree misdemeanor charges of theft by unlawful taking would bar him from holding office.
However CELDF attorney Natalie Long stated Orzetti’s paperwork was properly filed in Ridgway, and Lloyd Hulings is not barred from holding office, and cited the case of the Commonwealth ex rel. Hazel v. Flannery, in which the ruling stated “had the framers of the Constitution wanted burglary, larceny and conspiracy included in the prohibition to hold office, they could have done so by the simple act of naming those crime (just as) they named embezzlement of public moneys, bribery and perjury.”
Rob Boulware, manager of stakeholder relations for Seneca Resources, did not immediately return messages from The Era.
