Corbett Scales Back Policy for Drilling on Public Land
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
23 February 2011
By Associated Press
HARRISBURG -- A policy that environmental advocates view as an
important shield for certain state parks and forests against damage
from natural-gas drilling has been repealed by Gov. Tom Corbett.
Calling it redundant, the Corbett administration on Saturday killed the
policy, which had been written in October under then-Gov. Ed Rendell.
Corbett's Department of Environmental Protection published a
four-sentence statement in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, an official state
government publication, saying it will continue to consider input from
all parties with respect to public resources when it reviews and
approves drilling permit applications.
"This document, which was not subject to advanced public comment or
review, is being rescinded as unnecessary and redundant of existing
practice," the department said.
Multinational exploration companies are spending billions of dollars to
pursue the Marcellus shale natural-gas formation, which lies primarily
beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. But
Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 2,000 wells
drilled in the past three years and plans for many thousands more.
The Corbett administration took the step as the former head of
Rendell's parks and forests agency warned that drilling companies are
studying about a half-dozen state parks, including Ohiopyle in
Southwestern Pennsylvania and Pymatuning and Maurice K. Goddard in
Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Road cutting, pipe laying, truck traffic and drilling will be a jarring
experience for people who use the parks for camping, rafting and
hiking, said John Quigley, who led the Department of Conservation and
Natural Resources under Rendell.
Quigley insisted that the just-repealed policy was not redundant,
although he acknowledged that it was put into place without public
review.
The policy required his former agency to review drilling permit
applications for state parks and forests even where the state doesn't
own the below-ground natural-gas rights, he said. In essence, it forced
those lands to undergo the same process that the department had in
place when it chose to lease lands where it does own those rights,
Quigley said.
"There are gaping holes in the ability of state government to protect
public lands where the state doesn't own mineral rights, and this was
designed to close that in a proven and realistic way," Quigley said
Tuesday.
A DEP review of drilling on public land is cursory compared to the
review by park rangers and foresters, Quigley said.
Corbett's spokesman said yesterday that repealing the policy was part
of a two-part process of reopening state lands to drilling rigs, since
Corbett is expected to undo a four-month-old Rendell order banning
further drilling on state forest lands.
Corbett "believes that we should be drilling on state land," spokesman
Kevin Harley said.
Harley criticized Rendell's stance on leasing state forest land for
drilling before imposing the order against it, saying it was
politically driven.
"He was taking the money and he'd been bragging how much money the
state was getting from permits and royalties up until that point,"
Harley said.
The state owns the gas rights beneath 20 percent of state parks and 85
percent of state forests, according to a department spokeswoman. For
decades, it has leased state forest land where it owns natural-gas
rights for drilling. But it does not lease state park land for drilling
as long as it owns the mineral rights, spokeswoman Chris Novak said.
Some drilling has occurred in the past on state park land, but not for
the Marcellus shale formation.