Hand County planning and zoning leans toward 2‑mile setback for hazardous liquid pipelines

Members of the Hand County Planning and Zoning Board spent most of their meeting revisiting a proposed amendment to the county zoning ordinance that would regulate hazardous liquid pipelines and establish setback distances from dwellings and other sensitive sites.

The discussion focused on whether the draft should retain a separate category called “high consequence area” (a term used by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, PHMSA) or instead set a single, county‑wide minimum setback. Board members and staff said they are leaning toward a plainly stated 2‑mile minimum setback measured from the center line of a proposed hazardous liquid pipeline to the nearest point of a residence, school, church or municipal boundary, and removing the separate “high consequence” wording from the county draft.

Why it matters: a larger setback would change where pipeline companies can place new lines in mostly rural parts of Hand County and could affect private wells, confined livestock operations and municipal areas such as the City of Miller. Board members also said the county needs a clear, defensible rationale for any setback in case a company challenges it.

Board members and staff said the county’s existing ordinance lacks a definition for “high consequence area,” which appears in federal PHMSA materials and in some other jurisdictions’ pipeline rules. Participants reviewed PHMSA‑style criteria — for example, urbanized areas, places of assembly, hospitals and drinking‑water intakes — and noted PHMSA definitions include variables such as population density and confined‑occupancy facilities. Several board members said that, because Hand County does not meet many PHMSA thresholds in most places, the county would either need to adopt the federal definition wholesale or craft its own local definition if it keeps the term.

The planning administrator recommended two practical options: (1) drop the high‑consequence terminology and state a clear, uniform setback (the administration and several commissioners said 2 miles was a working figure), or (2) keep the two‑tier approach but add a precise local definition tied to specific facility types and population thresholds. Commissioners and board members repeatedly returned to measurement questions: whether setbacks should be measured from the pipeline center line to a parcel boundary or to the residential structure’s center, and how to treat quarter‑section parcels and scattered rural dwellings.

Participants discussed how the county’s conditional‑use permit process and the Board of Adjustment would interact with any pipeline application. Several speakers noted that conditional permits could include conditions to mitigate different kinds of pipelines (oil, natural gas, carbon) because the public‑safety consequences of a leak differ by product. Staff emphasized that, under the county rules, the Board of Adjustment — not the commission — is the authority that grants variances and conditions for setbacks.

Water resources and wells were a recurring concern. Board members asked whether private wells and water intakes should be listed among protected resources and how to treat “open” shallow wells versus deeper municipal or closed systems. The county planner said more information about plume behavior, groundwater risk and expert studies would help refine any wording.

Livestock facilities and animal feeding operations also drew sustained comment. The board discussed whether to reference the county’s existing animal‑feeding or CAFO definitions (which include numeric thresholds such as 1,000 animals or 225 animal units in some references) or to craft a separate “confined livestock facility” definition for pipeline setbacks to avoid loopholes from portable or seasonal operations.

Several board members urged the county to build an evidentiary record showing why the chosen setback is reasonable. One commissioner noted the county should be prepared to justify the distance if the matter becomes a legal dispute: “we need to have a rational reason why we set our setback the way we did,” the commissioner said during the meeting.

Next steps: staff (Jamie and Alton) will revise the draft ordinance language to reflect the board’s direction, remove or redefine “high consequence area” language as agreed, and align references so the Board of Adjustment is listed as the permitting authority when appropriate. The board suggested staff meet with consultant Eric Sanger and interested commissioners to refine technical definitions and measurement language. The revised draft will return to planning and zoning at a future meeting (the board discussed scheduling a March meeting or a special session to avoid repeated monthly discussion).