Save our State Forests

[Chaz]

The Oil and Gas industry wants to lease oil and gas drilling sites in our state forests for the purpose of developing wells in our most sensitive land. You can make a difference by sending the legislture an message opposing this drilling. Sections of forest will end up fragmented if this activity is permitted. Act now.

https://www.pennenvironment.org/action/our-natural-heritage/oil-drilling-sb1127

 

[tabasco_joe]

I would encourage people to read the bill.

As I read it the DCNR already had the authority to lease state land for oil and gas exploration in the original 1995 bill. This bill appears to add clarification on a few areas but does include the standard broad language about empowering the department to make the best use of the land.

Not sure what all the excitment is about.
Seems to me section 302.a.6 and 303.a.9 already gave the DCNR the authority to lease state land for oil and gas exploration.

Isn't that in the original 1995 bill or am I reading it wrong?

 

[Chaz]

As I understand the bill as written would have DCNR give up some of its rights as a landowner, and that is a bad thing. Yes there already is a law in place that allows DCNR to lease oil and gas rights, but it is very narrowly defined. There are already places in State Forests that have access roads dividing up the forest to the detriment of the forest.
As I see the problem, we need fewer roads in our State Forests, not more roads. A lot of roads were built during the CCC Days, and I dare say without much though as to the amount of use and where they are, there are many roads that should just be removed.

 

[tabasco_joe]

The bill adds language that would encourage the DCNR to utilize energy resources on state forest and park land. The original bill already gave the DCNR the authority to manage the state forest and park land with broad powers including oil, gas, mining, farming, and forestry. The details are in the DCNR management plans. The DCNR State Forest Resource Management Plan is being updated. In 2003 a moratorium was placed on shallow gas leasing. The new plan proposes lifting the ban but has language describing review on an individual basis for leases. As I understand it oil and deep gas leases were not banned.

So I don't think anything changes one way or the other relating to the legislative bill passing other than the language appears to be intended to sway the DCNR decision on the gas drilling moratorium.

My opinion: I support use of state assets in a smart, thoughtful manor. There are areas that a well (pun intended) managed foresting, mine, or drilling exploration could be done with minimal environmental and recreational impact. There are other areas that have high environmental or recreational value and should not be touched. I want the technical experts to make the call. Their management plan should be public (such as the plan they currently have on their WEB site.) and open to public input (which is). After the plan is put in place we can hold the department accountable to the plan or require a plan change if things aren’t working. Well run businesses do it all the time.

Most drilling is in the northwest portion of the state. I don’t get up there much so I’ll leave it to others to comment on drilling impacts on state forest land. It doesn’t appear to me there is going to be a rush of new drilling rigs slicing up the PA forests.

 

[tabasco_joe]

Let me add again that people should read the bill. It is very broad and has very few detailed instructions to the DCNR.

 

[RLeeP]

Here's a question....

There is a state well bonding law, passed in the mid 80's I think, over the strenuous objections of indep. oil and gas operators. The law requires an upfront performance bond from drillers which is forfeit in the case they do not do an adequate or clean job on the site. It's a good law because it took a lot of the "2 guys with a pickup truck and a drill rig" operations out of the biz because they couldn't afford the bond, which usually also meant they couldn't afford decent E&S and other controls on site.

But what I wonder is if the liability under the bond extends to the entire operation, including cutting the access road and bridging steams or only to the drilling itself and things like the associated brine disposal, etc.. Because the bottom line is that the greatest potential damage from these ops is access footprint-related and not nearly so much from the actual drilling or potential from spills, etc.