Marcellus worker

Working on a Marcellus shale drilling derrick can be dirty job.

(DONALD GILLILAND | dgilliland@pennlive.com)

Making good on a promise made in his budget address, Gov. Tom Corbett today issued an executive order that immediately opens state parks and forests to additional natural gas leasing – so long as the lease would not result in "additional long-term surface disturbance."



According to a press release from the governor's office, "Limited leasing will allow natural gas to be extracted from deep beneath the surface only when there will be no additional long-term disturbance on state forest and park lands. The order will only allow gas to be extracted horizontally through wells located on adjacent private lands or previously leased areas of the state forest."

The executive order is actually couched in the terms of a moratorium and says that "no state forest or state park land may be leased for oil and natural gas development which would result in additional surface disturbance on state forest or state park lands."

The executive order rescinds the previous executive order issued by former Gov. Ed Rendell establishing a moratorium on leasing additional state lands.

In effect, so long as there's no "additional surface disturbance," all park and forest land for which the state owns the mineral rights is available for gas exploration. That qualifier is important though, and its interpretation will ultimately be up to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which controls the property.

Corbett's proposed budget includes $75 million in new revenue from additional leases of state-owned mineral rights.

The proposal has been a lightning rod for environmental groups, some of which oppose drilling outright and some of which maintain the leases already issued under Rendell have gone far enough.



A DCNR report issued in April indicated the forests are already becoming less wild as a result of the Rendell leasing program, which is only about one-fifth complete. As of the end of 2013, the report said 568 wells had been drilled; however, DCNR expects a total of approximately 3,000 wells.

Recent research by Penn State professor Margaret Brittingham indicates that conventional drilling activities in the Allegheny National Forest have already affected bird populations, a trend which is likely to accelerate as Marcellus drilling activity – especially the construction of additional roads and pipelines – breaks up interior forests.

"The cumulative effect of many small-scale disturbances within the forest is resulting in the homogenization of bird communities, with species that inhabit the interior forest, such as black-throated blue warblers, ovenbirds and Blackburnian warblers being pushed out, and species that prefer living in edge habitat and near people and development, such as robins, blue jays and mourning doves, moving in," said Brittingham.



Corbett's position is the new leasing will not add to forest degradation.



"I am directing that the commonwealth maintain a moratorium on any additional gas leasing of DCNR lands that involves long-term surface disturbance, such as placing well pads, roads or pipelines in the newly-leased areas," he said. "This balanced approach will ensure that the special characteristics and habitats of DCNR lands are conserved and protected, and will also provide for historic investments in conservation programs, our schools and quality health care, without raising taxes on Pennsylvanians."



PennFuture, one of the state's leading environmental groups, thinks differently.



After the DCNR report in April, PennFuture President and CEO Cindy Dunn said, "We remain unequivocally opposed to additional leasing of our state parks and forests for natural gas drilling. It's time we put the brakes on runaway drilling – the gas is under our land and it's not going anywhere.



"We owe it to the citizens of the Commonwealth to more fully understand the impacts of natural gas drilling before we turn special places into industrial zones," she said.



Previously, DCNR officials has indicated that additional leasing (with surface disturbance) could jeopardize the state forests' "green" certification, but the Corbett administration says the current proposal won't.



"The commonwealth's state forest system has been certified as 'well-managed' longer than any other in the country, and continues to receive that distinction after five years of gas development in the Marcellus shale formation," DCNR Secretary Ellen Ferretti said. "I am confident that DCNR can continue to manage our system for a variety of uses and values, including ecological integrity, outdoor recreation and the environmentally sound extraction of underground resources."

Meanwhile, Rep. Greg Vitali, a Democrat from Delaware County, is waging an open records battle with the Corbett administration in an attempt to find out how they arrived at the $75 million estimate for revenue likely to be generated by the additional leasing.

Yesterday, the Office of Open Records ruled in Vitali's favor, directing DCNR to release the relevant documents.

Vitali compared the administration's reluctance to release records to its Friday-afternoon-before-a-holiday-weekend announcement of the executive order.

"It shows a total lack of interest in transparency and on the contrary, a concerted effort to hide what he's doing," said Vitali. "I think it's appalling."



In a new twist on why additional leasing might be a good thing, Corbett said in the press release today: "Future royalties from these leases will be dedicated to expanding our system by acquiring lands with high conservation value and ecological importance, purchasing privately-held subsurface rights for existing DCNR lands and improving state parks and forests."



That sounds noble, but it's not new.



Royalties – the money paid on gas extracted – have always gone into the Oil & Gas Lease Fund, which has always been used to acquire lands with high conservation value; however, since Marcellus drilling began, money has been taken out of the Oil & Gas Lease Fund to pay for general operating expenses at DCNR.

The executive order explicitly directs how the royalty revenue is to be used, but the governor does not have that authority. The General Assembly amended the fiscal code in 2009 and reserved the right to appropriate oil and gas revenues to themselves.

The law states: "No money in the (Oil and Gas Lease Fund) from royalties may be expended unless appropriated by the General Assembly."

John Quigley remembers that change; he was Secretary of DCNR at the time.

Quigley said Friday: "When I was DCNR Secretary, I said in 2009-2010 that leasing state forest land to balance the budget amounted to burning the furniture to heat the house. It was a mistake then, and it's an even graver mistake now."



Corbett's press release notes that his budget "also includes the initiative 'Enhance Penn's Woods,' a 2-year, more than $200 million investment in improving state parks and forests that is the largest funding commitment for this purpose in commonwealth history."

That capital investment – and others – is not reflected in the proposed operating budget for parks and forests, which would be cut by $1 million under the governor's proposal.



Corbett's executive order was met with approval from the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry.



Chamber CEO Gene Barr said: "We know that we can safely and efficiently protect our state's natural lands while still benefiting from the economic opportunities that come with growing the natural gas industry and making Pennsylvania a world leader in energy production."

Former Secretary of Environmental Protection John Hanger, who helped write the previous moratorium, blasted the new one – and the timing of its release.

"This decision is clearly so toxic to the public that the governor is releasing it late on a Friday afternoon before a three-day holiday," said Hanger. "Corbett just does not understand that we cannot drill our way to prosperity, and we cannot drill our way to a balanced budget."

Dave Spigelmyer, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, and industry group, issued the following statement: "Safe, tightly-regulated shale development has been, and continues to be, a powerful economic engine for the entire Commonwealth, creating thousands of jobs, especially in our manufacturing sector, and generating huge amounts of tax revenue all while enhancing our environment. This common sense approach, which minimizes surface disturbance, will bolster these broad-based benefits and further position Pennsylvania for a brighter, more prosperous future."



From PennFuture's perspective, Dunn said: "The suggestion that this industrial activity can be 'carefully managed' provides scant comfort to Pennsylvanians who frequent Penn's Woods. Carefully-managed industrialization is still industrialization, so the need for a moratorium on leasing of state forests and parks to drillers remains."

NOTE: This story has been updated from the original to add comments from Vitali, Hanger, Spigelmyer and Quigley, to add information about the 2009 changes to the fiscal code and to clarify the state funding proposals for parks and forests.