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Marcellus Shale Northeastern Pennsylvania’s New Frontier
By Patrick SweetStaff Writer
Future natural gas wellsmay be pushed outside of floodplains if new legisla-
t i o n i sapproved.State Rep.
Phyllis Mun-dy, D-Kings-ton, plans tointroduce ab i l l t h a twouldrestrictdrillers fromconstructing
well pads or drilling withinfloodplains.
None of theplannedwells
in LuzerneCounty arewith-in floodplains, according tothe state Department of Environmental Protection.A southern Wyoming Coun-ty well located on Robert
Longmore’s Monroe Town-ship farm is also not withina floodplain.
T h e l e g i s l a t i o n w i l lamend the Oil and Gas Acto f 1 9 84 a n d, M u nd yannounced Thursday in anews release, strengthendrilling regulations. Mundyoutlined thebill as:■Strengtheningwell loca-
tion requirements,■ Changing erosion and
sediment control permit
requirements, includingrequiring the state Depart-mentof EnvironmentalPro-tection to visit sites beforeissuing permits,■ Requiring the state
Departmentof Environmen-tal Protection to evaluateandtrackwellwaste, and■Requiring a study of the
impact of “all anticipatedo i l a n d g a s a c t iv i t ie sthroughout the common-wealth.”
“The laws we have on thebooks in Pennsylvania tomonitor drilling are lax intermsof protecting theenvi-ronment,” Mundy said inthe release. “More needs to
be done and my legislationwould provide necessaryguidelinesand protections.”
The bill will also preventdrillers from dischargingwastewater into surface
waters for threeyears.During that moratorium,Mundy said, the DEP willtake up the task of evaluat-ing alternative wastewaterdisposal methods.
“The department wouldthen be required to enforcethose alternatives,” therelease states, “providedthey are environmentallysound.”
W it h i n t h e f i r st s i xmonths of the moratorium,
the release states, the DEPwill have to createan onlinetracking system for oil andgas waste as well.
[email protected], 570-821-2117
Mundy
No state forest lands are left for gas leasingBy Laura LegereStaff Writer
There are no unleasedacres left in Pennsylvania’sstate forests whereMarcellusShale natural gas drillingsites, pipelines and accessroads could be built withoutdamaging environmentallysensitive areas, according toa newanalysisby theDepart-ment of Conservation andNatural Resources.
Nearly 139,000 acres of state forest have been leasedforgas drilling since 2008 and
money from those lucrativeleases — a total of $354 mil-lion — has beenused tohelpbalance the last two statebudgets.
But DCNRSecretary JohnQuigley said the era of leas-inglargeparcels of state for-ests forgas drilling is over.
“We may do some littlestuff hereand there,” he said,“but in terms of large-scaleleasing, we’redone.”
The department’s findings,demonstrated in a series of overlain maps on DCNR’swebsite, show the forests innorth-central Pennsylvaniaabove the gas-rich MarcellusShale crowded by leasedland, parcels where the statedoes not own the mineralrights and places wheredevelopmentmust be restrict-ed.
Of the 1.5millionacresof
state forest underlain by theshale, 700,000 acres have
already been leased or themineral rights under themare controlled by an ownerother than thestate.
An additional702,500 acresare in ecologically sensitiveareas — places with protect-ed species, forested buffers,old growth or steep slopes.Another 27,500 acres are des-
ignated as primitive andremote lands, 49,600 acreswere identified througha for-est conservation analysis aspriority conservation lands,and the last 20,400 acres areso entwined with the othersensitive areas that they can-not be developed withoutdamaging them.
The department began tostudy the limits of the stateforest land that cansafely be
leased to gas drillers as itdeveloped a series of Marcel-
lus gas leases in 2008 andJanuary andMay 2010.
Gas drilling has takenplace on state forestland formore than six decades, andmineral extraction is one of the forest’s designated uses,along with sustainable tim-ber harvesting, recreationand conservation. But Quig-
ley said “there are limits tohow much you can developthe resource and maintainbalance. And I think we’rethere.”
There are currently about10 producingMarcellus Shalegas wells in the state forest.The department expectsthere will be about6,000wellson 1,000 separate drillingpads when the resource isfully developed in 15 or 20
years.The secretary said the
prime consideration for anyfuture leasing, “if we do anyatall,” willbe thatdrilling orassociated activities not dis-
turb the forest’s surface — apossibility with horizontaldrilling technology thatenables drillersto access themile-deep shale from adja-cent properties.
The impact of the DCNR’sfindings is unclear.
Gov. Ed Rendell said earli-erthis year that noadditionalforest land will be offered forlease during his tenure,which ends in January, butthe department’s findingshaveno legalbearing on thenext administration’s abilityto change its forestpolicy.
A bipartisan groupof law-makers in the House passeda three-year moratorium onnew leasing of state forestland for gas drilling in May,butthe measure hasnot beentaken up by the Republican-led Senate.
Patrick Henderson, aspokesman for Senator MaryJo White, R-Franklin, thechair of the Senate Environ-
mental Resources and Ener-gy Committee, said he doesnot sense “atall” an upswellof support among the mem-bers of theSenate to pass it.
Henderson saidthe depart-ment’s findings “carry someweight,”but hesaidthe claimthat there is no forest landleft for surface gas develop-ment is subjective.
“I think different peoplecan conclude if there may besometractsof landout of 1.5million that lie within thefairway to lease,” he said.
A $120 million lease dealDCNRreached with Anadar-ko Petroleum Corp. in Maythat is expected to havemini-mal impact on the state for-est’s surface could not havebeen possible if the House’smoratorium bill had beenlaw, he said.
“There’s something to besaidfor having a fresh set of eyes under the new adminis-tration take a look at it anddraw their own conclu-
sions.”Quigley was optimistic
that if futuredecisions aboutforest leasing are left toDCNR,his department’s find-ingswill stand.
“The science tells us thatwe’ve reached the limit,” hesaid.
He added, “The questionbecomes whether we willface another occasion wheneconomics loomslarger.”
UGI Corp. plans to investmore than $300 million overthe nexttwo years to developnatural gas infrastructure intheMarcellusShaleregion,ap ro j ect t h a t in cl u d es a“major pipeline project,” theutility company announcedThursday.
UGI officials outlined themove in a one-and-a-half-pagenews release sent out afternormal business hours with-out providing detailsof exact-ly where the company mightlocate such a pipeline. Theprojectwould bringMarcellusShale producers in the state“improved accessto high-val-ue markets,” accordingto therelease.
TheFederal EnergyRegula-t o ry C o m mis s ion m u s tapprove the project, whichUGI said would be availableforservicelatein 2012.
UGI also announced plansto improve delivery optionsfrom storage fields in north-centralPennsylvaniaby build-ingmore storagewells,amongotherprojects.
UGI officials could not bereached for furthercommentThursday evening.
The Marcellus Shale rockformation extends from NewYork, through Pennsylvaniaandinto WestVirginia andisbelieved to hold hundreds of trillionsof cubic feet in natu-ral gas. The vast reserve hasprovidedan economicboon forgas companies and residentswilling to lease their land fordrilling,but hasbroughtsafetyconcerns as well as fears of environmentalissues associat-ed with breaking apart theshaleto accessthegas.
— Andrew Staub
Mundy proposes keeping gas wells away from floodplains
BOB DONALDSON / PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
Separator tanks are seen in Maurice K. GoddardState Park in Sandy Lake as contractors land-
scape around the Cochran No. 1 gas well head.
Search for natural gasleases, permits and morein our online databasesat citizensvoice.com/
drilling.
citizensvoice
UGI to spend$300M ondrilling project
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