When the Warren County School District sold the former Allegheny Valley Elementary School nearly five years ago, the oil and gas rights weren’t included in the $80,000 sale price.

But that agreement also specifically prohibited the district from developing those mineral rights on the 13-acre parcel.

Now that Clarendon Borough, which bought the property in July 2019, has asked for those mineral rights, the school board has to sort it out.

Clarendon Borough Mayor Tom Eaton approached the board back in December to petition that those mineral rights be transferred to the borough. According to Eaton, the building has been used, in part, to house homeless veterans – a use the borough put forth when initially acquiring the building. At present, the facility has space to house 32 individuals, Eaton said.

However, heating the space has proven costly. Eaton told the board that there are a number of abandoned wells on the property. He said the borough hopes to drill a gas well and use the output to heat the building.

“We were able to go back and look at how that happened between the board and the organization,” WCSD Superintendent Amy Stewart told the board this week.

She called the language in the agreement with the borough “strange wording” and an “odd way that it was written.”

That discovery was just a first step, though.

“We did not go back and do the legal research necessary to know if we even do own the OGMs or not,” Stewart said.

She asked the board whether that additional research – needed to facilitate a transfer – should be completed.

“I would say let’s move forward,” Board member Kevin Lindvay said. “I don’t think we need them.”