PennFuture seeks state park protection
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/pennfuture-seeks-state-park-protection-1.1211603#axzz1Zj7VI2Rp
By Robert Swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)
Published: October 1, 2011
HARRISBURG – A statewide environmental group launched a campaign on several fronts Thursday to head off any future gas drilling in state parks.
PennFuture called on natural gas companies to voluntarily sign a pledge not to drill in state parks or buy gas supplies drilled there. The organization also urged lawmakers to enact a significant special impact fee for any drilling in state parks that disturbs the land surface.
The issue is considered pressing by environmentalists because the state doesn’t own the subsurface mineral rights beneath an estimated 80 percent of state park land. Sixty-one of the 117 state parks are in the Marcellus Shale formation and seismic testing for gas deposits has taken place in several parks.
“There is a very real possibility of gas rigs puncturing our state parks,” said John Quigley, a former secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, who is a PennFuture consultant.
Quigley said the group recognizes that state law gives owners of mineral rights in state parks the right to develop their property and sign leases with gas companies. That’s why the appeal is being made to the gas companies not to seek leases in recognition of the public value of park land and its importance to local economies, he said.
“I think frankly the industry does not need the PR headache of disturbing the park land,” added Quigley. In addition, PennFuture is working with lawmakers to introduce bills to require a 300-foot setback to drilling along the boundaries of a state park and to establish a special impact fee substantial enough to discourage drilling on park land that disturbs the land surface, he said.
When the state acquired tracts for state park land in decades past before deep gas drilling was even considered possible, the mineral rights were either too expensive or already owned by individuals or in some cases companies that since became defunct.
But DCNR has sketchy information about the ownership of mineral rights. Quigley said it would be too expensive and time-consuming to do title searches on mineral rights at all the state parks. The general policy has been to require an owner to submit proof of title, he said.
DCNR monitors the activities of gas companies if they conduct tests on privately owned mineral deposits in state parks and makes sure they abide by rules governing disturbance of surface land, said Richard Allan, the DCNR secretary, in testimony Wednesday before the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.
“Beyond that, we have to give them access if they want to do certain tests,” he said.
swift@timesshamrock.com