Spotlight - Let's Be Smart About Developing Our Natural Gas Resources

By Matthew Royer, Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Pennsylvanians value the Commonwealth’s abundant natural beauty and resources, its forests and rivers and streams. We have a constitutional right to clean air and clean water. This is Penn’s Woods, with a model state public lands system, developed and fought for by conservation giants like Gifford Pinchot and Dr. Maurice Goddard.
But all of this hangs in the balance as the Governor and legislators, influenced by one million dollars of industry lobbying, talk of giving up on a natural gas severance tax in favor of more Marcellus shale drilling on our State Forest lands.
Let me tell you what will happen if this comes to pass. Let me tell you what is happening today, on those State Forest lands where drilling is already taking place.
Yesterday, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation filed a legal challenge to erosion and sediment control permits issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for drilling activities on Tioga State Forest. This is just one of several challenges we have filed because DEP is not doing its job to make sure our State Forests and other stream and wetland resources are protected from the environmental impacts of drilling.
In April, without any public notice, DEP stripped County Conservation Districts of their authority to review and approve erosion and sediment control and wetlands permits. In the same fell swoop, and again without public notice, DEP instituted an expedited erosion control and stormwater permitting process that does not allow for public participation or meaningful agency review of permit applications.
Instead of protecting the environment, DEP is rubber stamping permit applications without any formal review. DEP’s permit review process consists of simply making sure all the paperwork is in the permit application. Unbelievably, they are not conducting any environmental review of the plans that drilling companies are required to submit in order to minimize environmental impacts. Pennsylvania’s precious water resources—our rivers, streams, and wetlands—are at risk due to the lack of thorough DEP oversight.
In the most recent legal action, CBF is challenging permits issued to Fortuna Energy, Inc. authorizing earth disturbance for substantial drilling operations in Tioga State Forest in Ward Township, Tioga County.
This spring, prior to being stripped of its authority, the Tioga County Conservation District issued the first permit to Fortuna for these operations, authorizing 8 acres of earth disturbance to build one well pad.
The Conservation District conducted a thorough technical review of the plans, requiring changes to the plans to make sure that the erosion and sediment control devices would work properly and be most protective of streams. The Conservation District required the drilling company to conduct a wetlands survey to make sure no wetlands were being impacted. It required the company to address post-construction stormwater runoff, which can pollute streams.
Since the initial permit issuance, DEP stripped all Conservation Districts statewide of their review authority on these kinds of projects, and instituted its fast track permit process. Over an eleven week period from June through August, the drilling company submitted permit applications for thirteen amendments to authorize more earth disturbance in the State Forest, for more well pads, impoundments, and pipelines.
All told, the amendments authorize over 105 additional acres of disturbance, a thirteen-fold increase in the amount of forest land cleared.
DEP did not conduct a technical review of any of the thirteen permit applications it received. And, it did not conduct an analysis of the cumulative impacts that these multiple earth disturbances would have on local streams and forests.
With the exception of one amendment for a seven acre pipeline extension, no wetlands surveys, necessary to determine potential damage to wetlands, were submitted to DEP for its review. None of the thirteen amendments contained any analysis of the rate or volume of stormwater runoff from the construction. Yet DEP approved every single amendment request, some as quickly as within four business days of first receiving the application.
That these permits were issued without technical review and an analysis of the damage caused by construction and post-construction runoff violates both the federal Clean Water Act and Pennsylvania law.
Simply put, our state environmental protection agency is not doing what it needs to do to protect our environment. And this is not just any piece of property—this is one of our State Forests, which are held in the public trust for the enjoyment of all Pennsylvanians.
We are greatly concerned that, if the severance tax is scrapped in favor of opening up more State Forest lands to drilling, and DEP’s current policy of rubber stamping permits continues, the industry will be left to run rough shod over our State Forests, without contributing anything financially to help mitigate the environmental and local community impacts from drilling.
Ironically, DEP announced just yesterday that, after over a century of being literally dead from the impacts of coal mining, another Tioga County stream, Babb Creek, may finally be healthy enough to be removed from the state’s list of impaired waters. It took two decades of hard work, multiple partners, and $7 million dollars to clean up this one stream.
This time, we need to be wiser in the development of our energy resources. We need to learn from the lessons of the past. We cannot afford to leave our children with another costly legacy of environmental damage.
That is not what Pennsylvanians want. Governor Rendell needs to rethink recent statements and stand up to Republican legislators in budget negotiations on this issue. He needs to put the severance tax back on the table, and keep our State Forest Lands off limits to wholesale drilling.

For more information visit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation/PA webpage.