Posts Tagged ‘Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’

Experts say area should prepare because drilling is not far off

SCRANTON — Drilling for natural gas in Marcellus Shale in Monroe and Pike counties? It’s not a question of if, but when.

That was the word from around the state Thursday at a forum at Marywood University, where experts said the region is rich in the valuable fossil fuel.

The bulk of the drilling now in northeast Pennsylvania is along the northern tier but could eventually extend into the Poconos.

Kathryn Zuberbuhler Klaber, president and executive director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said areas more conducive to the entire operation — including roads and pipeline — are the first areas that will be drilled. Once more companies get involved and more money is available, drilling could expand to other parts of the state that haven’t seen it yet.

“There’s only so much capital right now,” she said. “By its nature, you’re going to see that concentrated development.”

Currently, there are no Marcellus Shale drilling operations in Monroe or Pike counties. There is only one in Wayne County.

One roadblock from local drilling right now is the Delaware River Basin Commission, which stopped issuing drilling permits in 2009 until it can formulate a list of regulations gas companies must meet.

Clarke Rupert, spokesman for the DRBC, said the commission hopes to have those regulations finalized by the end of the summer and adopted by the end of the year, admitting that’s an “optimistic” schedule.

Marcellus Shale is found in most of Pennsylvania and parts of New York and West Virginia, about 5,000 to 8,000 feet below the surface. It had been considered too expensive to drill, but advances in technology and the rising cost of natural gas made it more attractive, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

The new method of drilling — hydraulic fracturing, known as “fracking” — uses large amounts of water mixed with sand and other items to fracture the shale and allow the gas to flow, according to the DEP. The water used is then treated before it is released back into the water system.

However, residents near some drilling operations have complained that local water supplies have been damaged. That’s led to some in the state to wonder if this is another coal industry, which ravaged the land of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area before it was gone.

U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-11, called the shale movement “our second chance” to correct the mistakes of the coal industry.

“Don’t exploit us, and we’ll work with you,” he said our message should be to gas companies. “Exploit us, and you don’t know the (bother) we can be to you.”

John Quigley, secretary of the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said about half of Pennsylvania’s state parks are in areas where Marcellus Shale is thought to be present, and about 700,000 of the 2.1 million acres of state forest land already is leased by gas companies.

He called for the state to stop issuing permits to gas companies until there is more known about the industry.

“Frankly, I think we need to take more than a timeout, we need to take a stop,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., encouraged local government leaders who may not have many avenues of protecting themselves to write and even pressure their state and federal representatives to make sure the Marcellus Shale industry is regulated.

“There is almost no area that can look and say, ‘That’s someone else’s problem,’” he said. “We all have to do what we can to make sure this is done the right way.”

View article here.

Copyright:  Pocono Record

By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: August 13, 2010

There are no unleased acres left in Pennsylvania’s state forests where Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling sites, pipelines and access roads could be built without damaging environmentally sensitive areas, according to a new analysis by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Nearly 139,000 acres of state forest have been leased for gas drilling since 2008 and money from those lucrative leases – a total of $354 million – has been used to help balance the last two state budgets.

But DCNR Secretary John Quigley said the era of leasing large parcels of state forests for gas drilling is over.

“We may do some little stuff here and there,” he said, “but in terms of large-scale leasing, we’re done.”

The department’s findings, demonstrated in a series of overlain maps on DCNR’s website, show the forests in northcentral Pennsylvania above the gas-rich Marcellus Shale crowded by leased land, parcels where the state does not own the mineral rights and places where development must be restricted.

Of the 1.5 million acres of state forest underlain by the shale, 700,000 acres have already been leased or the mineral rights under them are controlled by an owner other than the state.

An additional 702,500 acres are in ecologically sensitive areas – places with protected species, forested buffers, old growth or steep slopes. Another 27,500 acres are designated as primitive and remote lands, 49,600 acres were identified through a forest conservation analysis as priority conservation lands, and the last 20,400 acres are so entwined with the other sensitive areas that they cannot be developed without damaging them.

The department began to study the limits of the state forest land that can safely be leased to gas drillers as it developed a series of Marcellus gas leases in 2008 and January and May 2010.

Gas drilling has taken place on state forest land for over six decades, and mineral extraction is one of the forest’s designated uses, along with sustainable timber harvesting, recreation and conservation. But, Mr. Quigley said, “There are limits to how much you can develop the resource and maintain balance. And I think we’re there.”

There are currently about 10 producing Marcellus Shale gas wells in the state forest. The department expects there will be about 6,000 wells on 1,000 separate drilling pads when the resource is fully developed in 15 or 20 years.

The secretary said the prime consideration for any future leasing, “if we do any at all,” will be that drilling or associated activities not disturb the forest’s surface – a possibility with horizontal drilling technology that enables drillers to access the mile-deep shale from adjacent properties.

The impact of the DCNR’s findings is unclear.

Gov. Ed Rendell said earlier this year that no additional forest land will be offered for lease during his tenure, which ends in January, but the department’s findings have no legal bearing on the next administration’s ability to change its forest policy.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House passed a three-year moratorium on new leasing of state forest land for gas drilling in May, but the measure has not been taken up by the Republican-led Senate.

Patrick Henderson, a spokesman for Sen. Mary Jo White, R-21, Franklin, chairwoman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said he does not sense “at all” an upswell of support among the members of the Senate to pass it.

Mr. Henderson said the department’s findings “carry some weight,” but he said the claim that there is no forest land left for surface gas development is subjective.

“I think different people can conclude if there may be some tracts of land out of 1.5 million that lie within the fairway to lease,” he said.

A $120 million lease deal DCNR reached with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in May that is expected to have minimal impact on the state forest’s surface could not have been possible if the House’s moratorium bill had been law, he said.

“There’s something to be said for having a fresh set of eyes under the new administration take a look at it and draw their own conclusions.”

Mr. Quigley was optimistic that if future decisions about forest leasing are left to DCNR, his department’s findings will stand.

“The science tells us that we’ve reached the limit,” he said. “The question becomes whether we will face another occasion when economics looms larger.”

ONLINE http://bit.ly/DCNRmaps

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  The Scranton Times

Governor’s office announced this week a plan to allow Anadarko Petroleum to access 32,896 acres.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Some state representatives are concerned about Gov. Ed Rendell’s decision to lease nearly 33,000 acres of state forest land to an energy company for natural gas exploration.

Rendell’s office on Tuesday announced that Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has paid the commonwealth $120 million to access 32,896 acres of state forest through a natural gas lease agreement with the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Prior to a presentation on the state Department of Environmental Protection’s role in regulating natural gas drilling that she attended Tuesday at Misericordia University, state Rep. Phyllis Mundy said she was disappointed to learn of the lease transaction.

“The areas that could responsibly be leased in state forests are already under lease. Why don’t they go ahead and drill there? We don’t need additional drilling, certainly not until we look into whether this is the really sensitive habitat that DCNR said it was when we discussed it,” Mundy, D-Kingston, said.

But Mundy later qualified her comments, saying they were dependent on whether leasing that acreage was previously factored as revenue in this year’s state budget. “I’m really not clear on what 32,000 acres that was,” she said.

Rendell’s press release on Tuesday did not clearly specify whether revenue from this most recent lease agreement had previously been factored into the state budget. DCNR had leased about 32,000 acres of state forest land to Anadarko in January for $128 million.

Mundy co-sponsored legislation to impose a moratorium on leasing state forest land for natural gas exploration. House Bill 2235 passed in the House and is before the state Senate.

State Rep. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, who also attended the presentation at Misericordia and voted in favor of the moratorium, said she too had a problem with the lease if the revenue had not been previously included in the state budget.

Both representatives have been outspoken in their concern about potentially harmful effects of natural gas drilling on the environment and have been advocating for stronger laws and regulations to protect public heath and safety and drinking water supplies from potential contamination from gas drilling accidents.

DCNR Press Secretary Chris Novak said Wednesday the specific amount of acreage wasn’t included in this year’s budget or specified in Rendell’s 2010-11 proposal, but legislators had agreed during negotiations for this year’s budget that $180 million for the 2010-11 budget would come from oil and gas leases.

Novak said Rendell had a target of $60 million in revenue from leasing out the 32,000 acres of forest in January, but realized $128 million. That extra $68 million would be applied to the 2010-11 budget, she said.

DCNR also leased 74,000 acres of forest for natural gas exploration in September 2008. A total of 725,000 acres of the state’s 2.2 million acres of forest land has been leased for gas drilling, Novak said.

In addition to the up-front lease payments, which are considered rent for the first year of the leases, the state will receive 18 percent royalties on all natural gas produced on the land for the leases signed this month and in January. The royalty for the September 2008 lease is 16 percent.

Rent for the second through fifth years drops to $20 per acre and then increases to $35 per acre for year six and beyond, Novak said.

Novak said DCNR looked at whether important habitat for rare or endangered species and recreational use would be impacted when designing the leases. She said leases for each of the 11 tracts specify areas that cannot be disturbed by drilling.

She estimated that because of new horizontal drilling techniques and the fact that the newly leased land is surrounded by land that had been leased previously, only a minimal amount of newly leased land – probably about 300 acres total – will be impacted by drilling activities.

Anadarko spokesman Matt Carmichael would not estimate how much land would be disturbed because it was too early in the development phase.

“It’s our hope and desire to disturb as little surface area as possible,” Carmichael said.

Anadarko has drilled about 15 wells on state forest land to date, he said.

Novak said that prior to drilling activities and after the drilling is complete and wellheads are installed, the public will have full access to the leased land.

Mundy and Boback were not available for comment Wednesday after Novak responded to questions related to state budget revenue and the disturbance of sensitive state forest habitat.

Copyright: Times Leader

HARRISBURG – As a bill calling for a moratorium on leasing state forest land for natural gas exploration languishes in the Senate, Gov. Ed Rendell announced today that the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources finalized a lease agreement with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. for 32,896 acres of forest land in Centre, Wyoming and Bradford counties.

In a press release, Rendell said the “responsible natural gas lease agreement” will allow Pennsylvania to meet its need for revenue while fulfilling its obligation to protect Pennsylvania’s natural resources.

Under the agreement, Anadarko has paid the commonwealth $120 million to access 32,896 acres that are surrounded by tracts of land for which drilling companies already hold lease agreements. Because these newly leased tracts can largely be accessed by gas operations on the adjacent tracts, the amount of new state forest surface area that must be disturbed is minimized, according to the press release.

Other than the agreement, the commonwealth will not have to make any additional state forest land available to reach its revenue goals for natural gas drilling in the 2010-11 fiscal year.

“This is a responsible approach that meets our revenue targets and limits the impact of additional natural gas exploration in our state forests,” Rendell said.

“We do not need to expand our drilling footprint in state forest lands to meet our revenue goals, because these parcels are already surrounded by other leased acres,” Governor Rendell said. “They also are within areas leased in the 1970s and 1980s by DCNR, but not all the acreage was drilled because technology wasn’t available to exploit Marcellus Shale deposits.

“In order to develop the acreage, DCNR and Anadarko have agreed to certain provisions to make certain there is minimal impact on the surface. Horizontal drilling technologies allow Anadarko access to most of this acreage from already disturbed areas on their adjoining leased lands.”

The newly leased acres cover 11 tracts in the Moshannon, Sproul and Tiadaghton state forests where Centre, Clinton and Lycoming counties meet.

For 27,185 acres on 10 tracts, Anadarko agreed to pay $4,000 per acre, consistent with the average price paid during DCNR’s January 2010 competitive lease sale. For the remaining 5,711 acres on one tract, the commonwealth will receive $2,000 per acre because the geology underneath is not as promising for gas production.

The lease of the 11 tracts totals about $120 million. DCNR’s January 2010 lease sale generated $128 million-$60 million of that went toward this year’s General Fund budget and the additional $68 million will be applied to a target of $180 million to help balance state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2010.

“With this agreement negotiated and the money in the bank, we can safely be on board with the moratorium which passed the House and is now in the Senate. If the Senate passes the legislation and it comes to my desk, I will sign it,” Rendell said.

Read more in The Times Leader on Wednesday.

Copyright: Times Leader

By ANDREW MAYKUTH The Philadelphia Inquirer

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources signed a $6.15 million agreement Monday with Chesapeake Energy Corp., giving the company the right to drill the Marcellus Shale under a seven-mile stretch of the Susquehanna River in Bradford County.

Under the lease, which applies to 1,500 acres of river between Towanda and the Wyoming County line, Chesapeake is permitted to access the shale with wells drilled on either side of the river. No well bores will penetrate the river itself.

Horizontal-drilling technology makes drilling for gas beneath the waterway feasible. With wells that reach laterally for thousands of feet, operators can capture gas under a large area from a remote location.

The state Department of Environmental Protection says that under-river gas exploration poses no more risk than any of the 1,400 other wells drilled into the Marcellus formation, which is a mile below the surface. The lease is separate from the state’s offering in January of 32,000 acres of state forests, which generated $128.5 million to help close the state budget gap.

The $6.15 million raised by the Susquehanna River lease will help keep open 24 state parks that had been threatened with closure because of the budget crisis, said Christina Novak, DCNR spokeswoman.

DCNR’s Susquehanna River lease may conjure memories of the 1959 Knox Mine disaster in the Port Griffith section of Jenkins Township, when the Susquehanna broke through a coal mine that was dug just below the river bottom. A dozen miners died in the flood.

Geologists say subsidence is not an issue with gas exploration. The well bores are only a few inches in diameter.

Copyright: Times Leader

Industry may pay to upgrade plants that handle waste water from process.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

The state is contending with a multibillion-dollar water-treatment problem, and the growing gas-drilling industry might be part of the solution.

A roughly $7.2 billion deficit exists for repairing or upgrading waste-water treatment facilities in the state, according to a task force created by Gov. Ed Rendell to solve water-infrastructure issues. Gas companies might help defray that cost as more wells are drilled because the companies will need treatment facilities for waste water.

The process to drill gas and oil wells, called hydraulic fracturing or simply “fracing,” involves shooting sand and water down a well to fracture the rock containing the oil or gas.

The contaminated water is separated out and can be stored and reused, but must eventually be treated. The state Department of Environmental Protection categorizes it as industrial waste, agency spokesman Mark Carmon said.

In western Pennsylvania, where many shallow wells exist, privately operated treatment facilities handle such waste, but none has so far in the northeast area, said Stephen Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Association.

Exploring the Marcellus Shale, which runs from upstate New York into Virginia, including the northern edge of Luzerne County, generally requires far more water than shallow wells because the wells can be 8,000 feet deep

Companies working in this region have reused the water in multiple wells and then shipped it to the facilities out west, Rhoads said, but “obviously, moving it across the state with the fuel prices the way they are, is not economically” viable. The water can also be injected deep into the ground, but no one has sought such a permit in this region, Carmon said.

That leaves sending the water to public facilities, but since many of them are already near or at capacity, the industry is considering paying to upgrade plants. About 30 of the largest regional treatment facilities have been notified by DEP that they might be approached with the idea and that they’d first need to modify their liquid discharge permits and receive approval from the agency, Carmon said.

The idea hasn’t escaped the gas companies.

“We’ve talked about that in various areas throughout the state,” said Rodney Waller, of Range Resources Corp. “We’re investigating that, but … there’s nothing on the horizon.”

Upcoming events

• 10:30 a.m. today the state Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, Susquehanna and Delaware river basin commissions, and county conservation districts are meeting in Harrisburg with industry members to discuss environmental regulations.

• 7 p.m. June 23 the Penn State Cooperative Extension is holding a gas-lease workshop for landowners at the Lake-Lehman High School.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Copyright: Times Leader

County officials had been negotiating with EnCana Oil & Gas USA Inc. of Denver.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

An energy company that plans to drill for natural gas in the Back Mountain has advised Luzerne County officials that the company will not pursue a lease for natural gas drilling at Moon Lake Park.

County officials had been negotiating with EnCana Oil & Gas USA Inc. of Denver to drill at the park and tap lake water needed to help fracture rock to release gas.

“The county informed us of their interest in entering into a lease for the development of natural gas resources on the Moon Lake property,” EnCana spokeswoman Wendy Weidenbeck said in an e-mail.

Weidenbeck said that as with any business opportunity, companies must evaluate multiple factors to help guide their decisions.

“We carefully considered the potential needs of our business and concerns over the development of natural gas resources on recreational property. After careful consideration, we have decided that we will not pursue a lease to drill for natural gas resources on the Moon Lake property,” she said.

Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla said she has been out of the office after knee surgery and had not yet been briefed on the issue.

Commissioner Thomas Cooney said he had not talked with EnCana officials and that Gibbons had alerted him to the news on Friday.

Cooney said other energy companies might be interested in exploration at the county-owned park and the development of a request for proposals was not out of the question. However, “there has been no conversation leading that way right now,” he said.

Cooney said he did not know how far along talks about selling water from the lake at Moon Lake Park have come. But if the county were to negotiate the sale of water, there would have to be appraisals and bidding and permits would have to be secured, he said.

The park’s 48-acre, spring-fed lake holds millions of gallons of water and is 13.5 feet in its deepest spot, county officials have said. All park water drainage pipes also feed into the lake.

Cooney said he thinks the reaction of the Sierra Club to drilling at Moon Lake probably influenced EnCana’s decision.

An official with the Sierra Club’s Northeastern Pennsylvania chapter said in February that county commissioners didn’t have legal authority to allow natural gas drilling at the park, which is located in Plymouth Township.

Frank Muraca, who sits on the organization’s executive committee, had said much of the park land was purchased with state and federal funds in the 1960s through a program known as the Project 70 Land Acquisition and Borrowing Act.

Lands acquired through the act must be used for recreation, conservation and historical purposes unless approval is granted by the General Assembly, the governor and the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Muraca had said he also found other legal and zoning stumbling blocks that would have to be met to allow drilling.

Muraca had initially presented the information to Commissioner Stephen A. Urban, who has said he couldn’t comment on Muraca’s assertions until he did his own research. He has said he is supportive of “responsible” drilling on county property to generate needed revenue.

Urban did not return a message seeking comment for this story.

The park officially closed Jan. 28 because commissioners stripped funding for staff and other expenses from the 2010 budget, saying that they could not justify non-essential expenses with a property tax increase.

Petrilla has said she is willing to consider any offer to generate revenue, as long as the park’s recreational atmosphere is not compromised. She also has said she would not support any offers that would drain or pollute the lake.

Steve Mocarsky, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.

Copyright: Times Leader

At issue is tapping into Marcellus Shale in Fairmount and Lake townships.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

WILKES-BARRE – After more than two hours of testimony on Tuesday night that mostly didn’t address the issues before the board, the Luzerne County Zoning Hearing Board unanimously approved temporary permits and special exception uses to develop natural-gas drilling sites in Fairmount and Lake townships, among the first in the county.

The board, however, placed several caveats on the approvals, including bonding for all roads used, sound and light control measures, and a prohibition on controlling dust on roads with water contaminated from the drilling process.

The two sites are located in municipalities that don’t have zoning boards, which is why the county board was involved.

In Lake, the site is on two properties on Zosh Road owned by Edward Farrell and Daniel Chorba. In Fairmount, the property just off state Route 118 east of Mossville Road and behind the Ricketts Glen Hotel is owned by Edward Buda.

The 12-month temporary permits will allow the well drilling and the storage of water used therein. The special exceptions allow the permanent existence of the well pad at the sites.

At least 50 people attended the hearing, speaking fervently both for and against the expansion of Marcellus Shale gas drilling into Luzerne County. However, board solicitor Stephen Menn warned throughout that most of those issues weren’t before the board.

“This board has very limited rights about what it can do with regards to gas and oil drilling,” he prefaced. “Your concerns are misdirected to us. They should be directed to your legislators.”

Board member Tony Palischak, who is involved with conservation groups, voiced concerns about drilling. “We’re a little skeptical because of all the hair-raising things,” he said, that have been reported in other drilling areas, including Dimock Township in Susquehanna County. A driller there has been fined and cited repeatedly for environmental abuses.

However, he approved the uses. “We have no alternative,” he said afterward. “It’s up to (the state Department of Environmental Protection) and (the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) to take it from here.”

Still, objectors from as far as Bethlehem noted water and air pollution concerns, along with damage to roads and congestion.

Others welcomed the economic opportunities, and at least one, Charles Kohl, was swayed when the Denver-based companies, WhitMar Exploration Co. and EnCana Oil and Gas (USA) Inc., announced their interest in leasing all properties in those townships.

The companies are also proposing a site in Lehman Township, which has its own zoning board.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Copyright: Times Leader

More than 650 acres are available. Drilling firms being contacted directly.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Luzerne County began seeking bids Monday to lease more than 650 acres at Moon Lake Park for natural gas drilling.

In an effort to entice a bidder, county engineer Joe Gibbons said he is contacting drilling companies directly.

“I’m trying to swing it in our favor. I’m sending e-mails out to the gas industry to see if anyone’s interested in receiving a set of bid documents,” he said. “It’s up in the air because the commodities are in the tank right now. … I’m kind of optimistic. I hope we get somebody.”

Potential bidders can review and pick up the documents at the county property and supply office in Penn Place at 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre. The bids are due by 2 p.m. April 23, but must be pre-qualified by April 9.

The proposal is modeled, Gibbons said, on that used by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

The request for proposals was structured, he said, so that the county receives several revenue sources from the deal and retains authority over where drill pads would be located in the park. “The last thing I want to do is make the place look like an open construction site. I want to maintain its recreational integrity. It’s just a unique project,” he said.

The county would receive income from the rental of the drilled acreage; the sale of the timber felled when preparing the drilling sites; other marketable fluids, such as methane or oil, that are extracted from the drilling; and storage fees for gas that is stored when an exploratory well is drilled, but capped until it can be hooked up to a pipeline, he said. “They can have the storage, that’s fine, but we get the storage rental,” he said.

All bidders would have to offer at least 16 percent royalties on the price at the well head for any marketable fluids it produces, he said.

The winning bidder will offer the highest initial-year rental fee for the acreage, he said, which was set for at least $500 per acre. After that, the fee drops to between $10 and $20 per year, he said, but there is a stipulation that drilling begin within a year.

The winning bidder would post three bonds, including one to ensure the site is restored after drilling concludes, he said. “I put restrictions on where they could take water from and how much they could take, even above and beyond what DEP (the state Department of Environmental Protection) would issue in a mining permit,” he said.

The bids would also have to be pre-qualified to ensure they are from actual drilling companies planning development and not land-holding companies expecting to resell the land, he said. “If we do get a lease, I want to deal directly with the gas company. I don’t want to go through a middle man,” he said.

Copyright: Times Leader

The Associated Press
HARRISBURG — Despite opposition from environmentalists, the Rendell administration will give exploration companies thirsty to capitalize on sky-high natural gas prices new territory to drill in Pennsylvania’s state forests.

Read more Natural Gas Leases – Marcellus Shale articles

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said it is ending a five-year-old moratorium on allowing new shallow wells, and that it will auction the rights to drill on an additional 75,000 acres of state forest land for the first time since 2002.

If successful in the bidding that will take place later this year, the exploration companies will be able to take a shot at two deep gas reservoirs, the Marcellus Shale formation, about 6,000 to 8,000 feet underground, and the Trenton-Black River, which is more than 10,000 feet deep.

Both are thought to contain large quantities of natural gas, and have drawn the interest of exploration companies from Texas to Canada that have asked for access to all of Pennsylvania’s 2.1 million acres of state forests.

Much of the land to be leased is in north-central Pennsylvania, and department officials argue that the deeper wells, spaced farther apart, inflict less forest damage than shallow wells, which are typically drilled closer together.

New shallow wells may only be drilled if gas is found during the development of deeper gas fields, officials said.

“We’re very excited about the opportunity,” said Stephen W. Rhoads, the president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association, “We just wish it were larger; 75,000 acres is not a whole lot of land.”

Jeff Schmidt, who directs the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club, said the department gave in to pressure from oil and gas company lobbyists, as well as legislators sympathetic to the industry.

“These are publicly owned lands and we don’t believe the average citizen supports turning over these lands to the oil and gas industry,” Schmidt said.

“We just wish it were larger; 75,000 acres is not a whole lot of land.”

Stephen W. Rhoads
Pa. Oil and Gas Association

Copyright: Times Leader