Industry applauds ruling on city gas drilling ban
Business Law
A court ruling that invalidates Morgantown's ban on Marcellus shale gas drilling gives West Virginia's oil and gas producers the certainty they need to keep expanding operations, an industry leader said Monday.
"We all along believed the city of Morgantown and some other communities in the state don't have the right to pre-empt the regulatory powers of the Department of Environmental Protection," said Corky DeMarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association.
"It would be very, very difficult for the DEP to do any oversight with the potential of 100 different sets of rules to comply with," he said.
On Friday, Monongalia County Circuit Court Judge Susan Tucker delivered a victory to Charleston-based Northeast Natural Energy in its legal battle with the city of Morgantown.
Northeast is drilling wells above the Monongahela River about a mile from a city drinking water intake. Citing concern over its water supply and the lack of tough state regulations, the City Council passed an ordinance in June to ban deep horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing within city limits and up to a mile beyond.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.