the allegheny front

State Land Opened for Drilling

Lisa Ann Pinkerton

Air date: 04/09/2008

OPEN: More Pennsylvania state forest land is being opened for natural gas drilling. This this reverses the state's moratorium on new drilling. The Allegheny Front's Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports.

It's been 5 years since new leases were sold for natural gas drilling on state forest land. Back then the state said it could not adequately protect the environment from shallow drilling activities. But now the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources says it will allow deep drilling on 75,000 acres in the state mostly in the north central region and consider shallow drilling on a case by case basis. DCNR Spokeswoman, Christine Novak says her agency favors deeper drilling because the activity will have a lower impact on the environment.

NORVAK: Deep wells are spaced much further apart than wells for shallow gas. And for that reason they have less than an impact in the forest and are more compatible with other forest uses.

TALBOT: That's just insane...

That's Ryan Talbot at the Allegheny Defense Project. He says allowing for both types of natural gas drilling will further fragment the forest habitat for wildlife and degrade water quality.

TALBOT: There's no reason DCNR has to do this. The only reason they are, is that oil and gas prices have risen so dramatically since the ban was put in place, five years ago.

Back then the price of natural gas was just over 3 dollars a btu. Today, the price has tripled to nearly 9 dollars.

For the Allegheny Front, I'm Lisa Ann Pinkerton