State to open more forest land for well drilling
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For the first time in five years, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources will open portions of the state's publicly owned forests for new natural gas well drilling.
In announcing it will end the moratorium on new well leases, the DCNR said yesterday it favors deep instead of shallow well development, and later this year will accept competitive bids for leases on 75,000 scattered acres of state forest land, mostly in the north central part of the state.
The department's position will allow limited shallow drilling on a case-by-case basis if gas is found during the development of large, deeper gas fields in the Marcellus Shale and Trenton-Black River formations. These massive gas fields are as deep as 15,000 feet below the surface -- five times deeper than almost all existing gas wells in the state.
"This approach on shallow gas drilling is a way for DCNR to cautiously and responsibly balance its legislative requirement to provide for the economic use of mineral resources while sustaining those forests and their ecological, recreational and cultural benefits for present and future Pennsylvanians," said DCNR Secretary Michael DiBerardinis.
The drilling decision will be part of a state update of its five-year forest management plan that also addresses deer management, all-terrain vehicle use, invasive species management, new land acquisition, and wilderness and natural area designations. Release of the full forest plan is expected in the next few weeks.
The Trenton-Black River formation runs underground from southern New York state, through Pennsylvania to Tennessee. The Marcellus Shale formation stretches from New York into West Virginia, and in Pennsylvania runs through the northern tier counties as far east as the Scranton area and as far south and west as Somerset County and Pittsburgh.
The proposed deep well drilling acreage, for which the state already has proposals from developers eager to drill while gas prices are high, will amount to about 4 percent of the 2.1 million acres of state forest land.
That's considerably less than was in a 2002 proposal that would have opened up to 500,000 acres of state forest land for deep well development. Environmental opposition to that proposal caused the DCNR to reconsider.
Since then, the department has tightened environmental rules for well development, including prohibitions on such development near streams and in state parks and wilderness and natural areas.
First Published April 2, 2008 12:00 am
