Hudson moves toward stricter drilling rules after Twinsburg blast

by Judy Stringer

July 14 city council meeting

Hudson officials used their first meeting back from a two-week recess to address public concern over directional drilling following the June 25 explosion in Twinsburg Township.

In the immediate aftermath of that blast, City Manager Thom Sheridan imposed a pause on directional drilling in Hudson, a move council member Kyle Brezovec said council supported. The pause affects fiber installation and similar underground work in city rights-of-way and easements and is likely to change the city’s planned timeline for bringing fiber to homes.

During his report, Sheridan said city staff have been “reviewing current contracts [and] state and government specifications, including project guidelines, to make sure all work meets the highest safety standards for this type of excavation in Hudson.” He emphasized that the goal is twofold: to avoid situations that require a response from the fire department and to establish standards strong enough that other communities may look to Hudson as a model.

Sheridan added that Hudson was “one of the first that asked … to [put a] hold on these directional drillings,” and said other cities are now watching the work the city is doing on updated specifications. The new standards will be drafted to apply broadly to any company working in local rights-of-way, not just fiber providers. Council President Michael Bird also raised concerns about neighborhoods where multiple fiber companies have come through in succession, tearing up lawns more than once.

“In this case, if we can do a better job of coordinating with these other agencies and working on the restorations of the properties, we’ll be happy to do that,” Sheridan responded.

The city manager outlined a near-term timetable for moving forward. He plans to propose new drilling specifications to council on Aug. 11 for review and potential approval, even if incident reports from the state fire marshal and Public Utilities Commission of Ohio are not available by then. In the meantime, the city is allowing certain PUCO-regulated work – such as gas line and electric line replacements – to proceed so residents can maintain essential services while the broader moratorium on fiber-related drilling remains in place.

Community alerts

Sheridan also signaled that the city will revisit how residents are alerted during emergencies and fast-moving incidents, such as the Twinsburg Township blast and a recent local police pursuit that ended in Stow.

He said a possible outcome is a “tiered system” that reserves CodeRED alerts for “major incidents” such as tornado warnings, while using the city’s Notify Me system and other tools for lower-level but still time-sensitive news, like watermain breaks or event rain delays.

As part of that effort, he said the city is examining whether it can leverage tools similar to FirstEnergy’s outage map to enable Hudson Public Power customers to view real-time outages. A report back to council in August, Sheridan concluded, will cover both how the city handled communications during the recent series of incidents and what changes are recommended.

Data centers

As part of its consent agenda, council passed a resolution that puts a six-month pause on approving, building or expanding any data centers. According to the legislation, this freeze gives the city council and city staff some breathing room to study how these massive facilities affect the community and create zoning laws for them.

While supporting the pause, council member Amanda Weinstein expressed her concern that data centers are not clearly defined in Hudson’s land development code, which could allow them to be classified under other categories.

“Should [planning commission] get an application, because there’s no clear classification in the code, it could potentially fit into a different classification like light industry or warehousing,” she said. “There are other communities where they have been classified as such.”

She proposed using the six months to create a specific data center use category in the land development code, define limits on the size and scale of such facilities, address their impact on utility capacity – particularly the power grid and water systems – and establish clear noise standards for any future projects.

In other actions, council approved:

• An agreement to continue to provide three school resource officers to Hudson City Schools, which includes one officer funded by the schools.
• A $70,939 professional services contract with TMS Engineers Inc. to conduct a traffic study for the proposed Clinton Crossing development.
• A long-term lease agreement with Northstar Towers for the construction, installation and operation of a cell tower and related communications equipment on city-owned property in the southern portion of Hudson.