PA Environment Digest Blog: Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group Update: Industrial Shale Gas Development In Tioga State Forest Prioritizes Industry Profit Over Constitutional Mandate To Preserve, Protect State Forest Lands

The Tioga County-based Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group devoted most of its Winter 2024-25 newsletter to providing an update on industrial shale gas development in the Tioga State Forest.

The Headwaters Protection Group was formed to protect Pine Creek, its headwaters and the forests and fields within that area.

They have never taken a formal position against fracking, but have worked to ensure the shale gas industry does “the least harm” possible to their beloved Tioga County.

Here is their report.

Overview

Years ago most of Tioga State Forest’s eastern end (north of US 6) was leased for shale gas exploitation (Tract #007), and the Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group has been actively opposing the expansion of an industrial footprint on the state forest itself.

At present there are two well pads (D and K), two clean water impoundments, a compressor station, and a few abandoned well pads which had been cleared, but not used.

Baldwin Run Road has been transformed from a “no winter maintenance” township dirt road into a 24/7, partially paved truck thruway, and Norris Brook Road has been paved most of its length.

One recent development is the construction of a gas pipeline from Tract #007 Pad K’s pipeline, compressor station due north (mostly on private land) to Seneca Resources own pipeline, which connects their Chatham and Middlebury well pads to BH East’s [ex-Dominion] interstate pipeline.

This will allow Seneca Resources [a National Fuel Gas company and the primary shale gas developer in the Tioga State Forest] to ship additional TSF gas throughout the Northeast, whereas currently their pads are only connected to Kinder-Morgan [Ex-Tenneco] interstate pipelines.

Another ongoing project is the Webster well pad on Route 287 overlooking the Muck, a Game Commission waterfowl game land and a source of water for Marsh and Pine Creeks.

Although this pad is on private land, Seneca Resources will construct a gas pipeline onto TSF to allow this gas to be piped to market on either interstate pipeline with the Tract #007 gas.

Now that it is obtaining access to an additional interstate pipeline, Seneca Resources has turned back to its plan for well pad L on Stone Trail atop Mount Nessmuk, which we discussed in last year’s P.C. Observer.

Pad K is 2 miles south of Baldwin Run Road, in an undisturbed part of TSF, an area criss-crossed by numerous hiking trails.

Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group has protested this placement, and has met twice with DCNR Bureau of Forestry [and Seneca] personnel, including a group ‘tour’ of the proposed site.

We were told that the placement was necessary so Seneca’s lateral bores could reach MILES outside TSF to extract gas on private land.

We reminded both Bureau of Forestry and Seneca staff that under the Pennsylvania. Supreme Court [Environmental Rights Amendment] ruling, state employees must act as stewards of state properties for the enjoyment by future generations.

We requested that Pad L be moved north, near to Baldwin Run Rd., already an industrial corridor with traffic, noise, and lights, emphasizing that DCNR Bureau of Forestry’s PRIMARY responsibility was to TSF, its wildlife, and Pennsylvania. citizens, NOT to Seneca and adjacent property owners.

But Bureau of Forestry staffers dismissed this concern, stating they had “equal responsibility” to private land-owners as to current and future Pennsylvania citizens.

When DCNR Secretary Dunn was presented by email and in person with this issue, she replied that Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group had “raised important concerns that must be addressed”, but her Deputy Secretary’s subsequent reply dismissed our position as baseless and irrelevant.

We are continuing to attempt to redress Seneca Resources’ current plan, which once again prioritizes profit for the Shale Gas industry over the Pennsylvania constitutional mandate to preserve and protect this environmentally sensitive and historically highly-valued recreational area.

Threats To Wildlife and Recreation

By Dr. Robert Ross, retired US Geological Survey Ecologist

Neotropical migrants are birds that spend half their lives in the American tropics (southern Mexico and the Caribbean to South America) and the other half in temperate or arctic North America.

Pennsylvania’s forests are targeted by many of these species for breeding habitat.

Illustrated here with my photos of some of these species, taken in the Tioga State Forest (TSF) near Stone Trail, are red-eyed vireo, hermit thrush, scarlet tanager, Canada warbler, black-throated blue warbler, and hooded warbler.

Canada and black-throated blue warblers are near the southern limit of their entire breeding ranges here in Pennsylvania, while 20% of the entire breeding population of scarlet tanagers occurs in Pennsylvania.

All but red-eyed vireo are declining in Pennsylvania, and most likely the TSF as well, and in need of help due to lost habitat primarily (Table 1).

Yet all of these birds were found defending territories within 50 meters of Stone Trail (south of Baldwin Run Road) in the TSF this summer.

This stretch of the forest is slated for tree removal, road, and pipeline construction associated with shale gas drilling and development at Seneca Resources proposed Pad L, 2 miles down Stone Trail—yet another loss of prime habitat for these forest-interior songbirds that will result in further population decline for them.

This part of the TSF is heavily used by recreationists also, including trail hikers, birders, mountain bikers, hunters, mushroom gatherers, and just plain solitude seekers.

Construction vehicles during infrastructure development will end whatever solitude is now provided by this forest section for a mile either side of the trail.

Long-standing 25-100-mile foot races sponsored by the Tyoga Running Club will be forced to take alternative routes, and trail hikers, birders, and other users will also be displaced from Stone Trail, Jim Close Trail, Broken Axe Trail, and will even be impacted on Baldwin Run Road as a result.

The Pine Creek Challenge and Green Monster Trail Challenge races bring runners, family, friends from downstate by the hundreds to this part of the state forest.

The local Asaph Trail Club hikes these trails, part of the popular Green Monster Trail System, several times a year.

Running at over 2,000 feet in elevation in places, it is one of the highest trail complexes in the TSF. How this section of the TSF was virtually handed over to the shale-gas industry for exploration and fossil-fuel development is beyond explanation.

Traffic to, from the drilling pad, however, is not the extent of impact to the forest.

The current plan calls for a pipeline that bends east before intersecting with the existing Tennessee Gas trans-state gasline.

This path would take it to and under Canada Run, an Exceptional Value coldwater stream that eventually reaches Marsh Creek and ultimately Pine Creek itself, before tying into an existing gasline along Baldwin Run Road.

More forest fragmentation will be the result of this alignment, looking somewhat like the recent clearing of the forest down to Norris Brook from the Baldwin Run area (Figure 2).

There is, seemingly, no end to the infrastructure buildout dictated by these drilling pads!

Impacts from invasive species of plants and animals along these de-forested corridors on native wildlife, such as the birds seen in my photos above, will be long-term.

And Little Texas is getting bigger.

Fracking Beliefs Ignore Realities

By Edmund Osgood

In a recent Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion survey, it was reported that 86% of respondents believe fracking boosts Pennsylvania’s economy.

Yet in the same survey, 67% believe fracking poses considerable risk.

Messaging and lobbying from the oil and gas industry (OGI) and their advocates, OGI’s highly visible donations to community projects, and lucrative drilling contracts to a small minority of PA’s property owners have been effective in shaping beliefs about the benefits.

Access to details about contaminating events is poor. Local publication of problems and OGI violations are rare.

OGI drilling sites are often located in remote locations, hidden from public view. Self-policing and non-disclosure agreements in settlements to property owners are factors influencing unwarranted positive perceptions.

All the above contribute to clouding awareness of costs fracking imposes on all of us.

In Pennsylvania, OGI and its advocates say without fracking, the state would be starved of billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue, inevitably leading to higher taxes, worse schools, lower quality of life, and financial disaster for Pennsylvania taxpayers.

Is Pennsylvania actually better off than states with shale deposits that don’t allow fracking?

A comparison is possible since there are two neighboring states with shale deposits, New York and Maryland, and a regional state, Vermont, that forbid fracking.

As reported in the 2024 US News and World Reports Best States Rankings, Pennsylvania ranks significantly lower overall in rank than New York, Maryland, and Vermont.

The rankings are based on each states’ economy, fiscal stability, opportunity, infrastructure, healthcare, education, natural environment, and crime and corrections.

By comparison Pennsylvania is not better off than our similarly shale resourced neighbors.

Fracking is not necessary for a state to remain vital and healthy.

Some of the high but not highly visible costs of fracking are ruined or degraded water supplies, destruction of fragile life-sustaining environments for plants and animals, high costs for taxpayer-funded plugging of OGI’s abandoned wells, and damaging effects to human health.

Like our long experiences with the lumber and coal-mining industries, history shows the future WILL bring long term negative effects.

Our Tioga River is an example: will Pine Creek follow the same fate?

Less power for marketing and lobbyists, better regulatory oversight, disclosure of facts, SCIENTIFIC accountability, and LEGAL and FINANCIAL consequences for the real and dangerous conditions created by OGI would be important steps for more accurate assessment of fracking phenomena.

Click Here to read the entire Pine Creek newsletter.

Support Requested

The Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group would gladly welcome our constituents’ financial and logistical support and input toward that goal!

Questions can be directed to PineCreekHeadWaters@gmail.com or 570-724-5097.

(Photos: top- Tioga State Forest well pads; bottom-- Baldwin Run Road 24/7 shale gas highway; Recently cleared pipeline right-of-way between Baldwin Run and Norris Brook.)

Resource Links - Shale Gas In Tioga State Forest:

-- Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group Asks DCNR To Protect State Forest Land From Seneca Shale Gas Drilling Well Pad, Comply With PA Supreme Court Decision, Protect Recreation, Wildlife [PaEN]

-- Member Of Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group Briefs DCNR Advisory Council On Siting Of Shale Gas Well Pad On State Forest Land To Accommodate Taking Gas From Private Land In Tioga County [PaEN]

-- DEP: Seneca Resources Ignores NOVs On DCNR Shale Gas Well Pad Cleanup For 7 Months & Counting; Citizen Complaint Finds Homeowner Well Venting Gas; Multiple Tanker Truck Spills [PaEN]

-- Pine Creek Headwaters Protection Group: Potential Impacts Of Shale Gas Development Forest Fragmentation On Tioga State Forest Birds [PaEN]

Resource Links - Seneca Resources (National Fuel Gas):

-- No One Warned A Cameron County Family Their Water Well Was Contaminated By A Seneca Resources Shale Gas Wastewater Pipeline Rupture [PaEN]

-- Citizen Complaint, Company Report Results In DEP Inspection Finding 63,000 Gallon Wastewater Spill At Seneca Resources Shale Gas Well On State Game Lands In Elk County [PaEN]

-- DEP: Seneca Resources Ignores NOVs On DCNR Shale Gas Well Pad Cleanup For 7 Months & Counting [PaEN]

PA Oil & Gas Industry Public Notice Dashboards:

-- PA Oil & Gas Weekly Compliance Dashboard - Nov. 16 to 22 - $5.257 Million In Penalties; Conventional Well Owners Issued More Violations Than All Of 2023; More Abandoned Wells; Failure To Submit Shale Gas Reports [PaEN]

-- EPA, Justice Dept., DEP Announce $5.275 Million In Penalties, Plus $1.4 Million In Abandoned Well Plugging Funding Against Shale Gas Drilling Companies-- XTO Energy, Inc., Hilcorp Energy Company For Federal, State Clean Air Act Violations [PaEN]