York Township, Belmont County, Ohio

York Township, Belmont County, Ohio
Township
Township hall at Steinersville
Location of York Township in Belmont County
Coordinates: 39°52′10″N80°49′35″W / 39.86944°N 80.82639°W / 39.86944; -80.82639
Country	United States
State	Ohio
County	Belmont
Area
• Total	26.0 sq mi (67.3 km2)
• Land	25.6 sq mi (66.2 km2)
• Water	0.5 sq mi (1.2 km2)
Elevation [1]	853 ft (260 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	2,320
• Density	89/sq mi (34/km2)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (EDT)
FIPS code	39-86996 [2]
GNIS feature ID	1085791 [1]

York Township is one of the sixteen townships of Belmont County, Ohio, United States. The 2020 census found 2,320 people in the township. ^[3]

Geography

Located in the southeastern corner of the county along the Ohio River, it borders the following townships:

• Mead Township – north
• Switzerland Township, Monroe County – south
• Washington Township – west

Marshall County, West Virginia, lies across the Ohio River to the east.

The village of Powhatan Point is located in southeastern York Township along the Ohio River.

Name and history

It is one of ten York Townships statewide. ^[4]

In February 2018, an explosion and blowout in a natural gas well in York Township owned by XTO Energy was detected by the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite's Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument. About 30 homes were evacuated, and brine and produced water were discharged into streams flowing into the Ohio River.

The methane leak lasted 20 days, releasing more than 50,000 tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The blowout leaked more methane than is discharged by most European nations in a year from their oil and gas industries. ^{[5] [6] [7] [8]}

Government

The township is governed by a three-member board of trustees, who are elected in November of odd-numbered years to a four-year term beginning on the following January 1. Two are elected in the year after the presidential election and one is elected in the year before it. There is also an elected township fiscal officer, ^[9] who serves a four-year term beginning on April 1 of the year after the election, which is held in November of the year before the presidential election. Vacancies in the fiscal officership or on the board of trustees are filled by the remaining trustees.

References

1. "US Board on Geographic Names". United States Geological Survey. October 25, 2007. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
2. "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau . Retrieved January 31, 2008.
3. "York township, Belmont County, Ohio - Census Bureau Profile". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
4. "Detailed map of Ohio" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 2000. Retrieved February 16, 2007.
5. "Exxon's XTO caps leaking Ohio gas well, 20 days after blowout". Reuters. March 7, 2018. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
6. Pandey, Sudhanshu; Gautam, Ritesh; Houweling, Sander; Gon, Hugo Denier van der; Sadavarte, Pankaj; Borsdorff, Tobias; Hasekamp, Otto; Landgraf, Jochen; Tol, Paul; Kempen, Tim van; Hoogeveen, Ruud (December 12, 2019). "Satellite observations reveal extreme methane leakage from a natural gas well blowout". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (52): 26376–26381. Bibcode:2019PNAS..11626376P. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1908712116 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   6936547 . PMID   31843920.
7. Falconer, Rebecca (December 17, 2009). "Satellite reveals Ohio gas well blowout to be a massive methane "super-emitter"". Axios. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
8. European Space Agency (December 20, 2019). "Massive Methane Leak Visible From Space". SciTechDaily. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
9. §503.24, §505.01, and §507.01 of the Ohio Revised Code. Accessed 4/30/2009.

External links

• County website