Friday, September 26, 2003

By Bill Toland, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG -- Environmental groups scored a major victory over commercial loggers this year when Pennsylvania's conservation agency unveiled a new forest plan that prohibits timber harvesting in the state's most fragile forest areas.

But the state House of Representatives is, for the moment, standing in the way of a second victory, a constraint that would prevent the installation of new natural gas wells throughout the rest of the 2.1-million-acre forest system.

This winter, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources intends to put in place its new management plan for the state's forests. The plan would expand the state's "wild" and "natural" areas, and eliminate new gas excavation projects across the entire expanse of forest.

The 450-page proposal was disclosed in May and, since then, the DCNR has been collecting public input on it through the mail and during meetings across the state.

That comment period will end Tuesday.

Via a resolution, the state House issued a comment of its own last week, asking the DCNR to hold off on the adoption of a final, prohibitive natural gas policy, mostly because the shallow gas wells have been so lucrative for the state in the past.

"That's one of the areas being looked at closely," said DCNR spokeswoman Gretchen Leslie.

State Rep. Scott Hutchinson, R-Venango, who sits on the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, introduced the resolution.

Resolutions carry no legislative weight -- the House is, in essence, simply asking the DCNR to think this one through.

Since 1955, DCNR has reaped about $122 million from leases and royalties paid by companies operating gas and oil wells on state forest land. Today, shallow gas wells alone bring in up to $4 million a year, money that's funneled back into DCNR coffers.

Regardless of whether the forest plan is adopted as written, about 400 shallow wells will continue to operate until they're tapped dry, Leslie said.

She also noted that the state's controversial Trenton-Black River deep wells -- the rights to which were auctioned last year -- haven't been drilled, and the state has yet to realize royalties.

Yesterday, leaders from several recreation and environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the Keystone Trails Association and PennFuture met in the Capitol rotunda and urged the Rendell administration to move forward with the DCNR forest plan.

The five-year plan calls for expanding the state's wild and natural areas by more than 20,000 acres. A natural area is a section of forest with special scenic, geologic or ecological value, set aside for scientific observation and to protect unique plant and animal communities. Wild areas are portions of forest set aside for general public use -- hiking, hunting and fishing.

Both types of areas are to be protected from commercial development and logging.

"We have land enough and forest enough for all, for eco-tourists and resource extraction," said Catherine Hammond, of the Pennsylvania League of Conservation Voters. "It only makes sense to preserve our most important wild areas."

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