We aimed at the wrong target. . .
While many folks wrote to their legislators to oppose any Governor Corbett plans to force DCNR to lease more lands for natural gas drilling, DCNR has not received messages. At a recent meeting, State Forester Dan Devlin said that he was “surprised at the lack of feedback from the public”.
DCNR needs our support in opposing new leases.
Write to the Brass at DCNR :
- DCNR Secretary Rick Allan rjallan@pa.gov
- State Forester Dan Devlin ddevlin@pa.gov
- CC your State Representative and Senator
Tell them that further leasing of State Forests is like burning your furniture to heat your house; a bad idea.
Below are a few other things that you might wish to mention:
[ ] Our landscapes are still scarred from our coal industry. We must not sacrifice the long term health and well being of our Commonwealth for short-term gain as we have in the past.
[ ] Further leasing of public lands could hurt our hunting and fishing traditions. All outdoor recreationists seek natural settings, not industrial forests. We want to preserve our rich natural heritage, not raze it for short-term financial gain.
Read the attached letter to the Governor from the Sportsman Alliance.
[ ] “You can’t manage it if you can’t measure it.” Funding for research on Wildlife has been cut by 70%. Until a complete and detailed environmental impact study has been performed it is premature to even consider further leasing of DCNR lands. Mapping locations of rare, endangered and threatened species will take at least three years and require a five-fold increase in DCNR field staff.
[ ] We cannot risk damaging Pennsylvania’s billion-dollar outdoor tourism industry, which relies on scenic forests with over 2,500 miles of trails and opportunities for hunting, fishing, birding, hiking, mountainbiking, horseback riding and snowmobiling.
[ ] Pennsylvania is home to Federally-designated “wild and scenic rivers” plus innumerable HQ and EV streams in the Marcellus gas play, which are habitat for our native Brook Trout. Pennsylvania cannot allow our headwater streams to be further endangered.
[ ] DCNR currently manages our State Forests properly – but to retain FSC (Forest Stewardship Council ) certification, the forests must continue to be managed sustainably. 88 percent of the certified timber harvested in PA is from our State Forests. Additional leasing of our State Forests will imperil that certification and over 80,000 forestry jobs that depend on it.
[ ] 49% of State Forest land in the ‘Marcellus gas play’ has already been made available for drilling. Any additional leasing would cause further fragmentation of our forests and additional harm to our wetlands and the headwater streams which flow from them. See http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/ucmprd1/groups/public/documents/document/d_000603.pdf Note the summary on Page 47.
[ ] Leasing Pennsylvania’s forest assets is a bad idea. It’s like burning your furniture to heat the house. A severance tax makes more sense.
[ ] Once the gas companies are finished with our State Forests, it will never be the same. We will be left with a completely-fragmented forest – A checker board of clear-cuts, plus thousands of miles of unneeded access roads, well heads and pipelines.
[ ] Past drilling has had a substantial impact on the quality of our State Forests. It has required hundreds of millions of gallons of chemically-treated water, the clearing of land, construction of pipelines, water impoundments and access roads and thousands of truck trips. And we were left with tens of thousands of leaking abandoned oil & gas wells.
[ ] Even if drilling were done via privately-owned inholdings, we would still have the new roads, 40,000 lb trucks, pipelines, fragmentation of habitat and potential for new pollution of our waters. The only safeguard is no additional Marcellus development on state forestland because “safe” is absence of risk.
[ ] We have spent millions of dollars advertising “PA Wilds”. The tourists will not come to Pennsylvania to see an industrialized forest. We advertise opportunities for hiking and hunting, rivers for swimming, paddling and fishing in the very same area which would be affected by the lifting of the moratorium. Our wild and natural areas, old-growth forests, sensitive wetlands and wilderness areas must be protected. The Governor must decide whether Penn’s woods will survive – or become “Penn’s Wells”. The forest cannot be both.
[ ] Rather than funding the budget on the back of our State Forests, our legislators should enact a severance tax on all natural gas extracted in PA. Destroying our wilderness opportunities and legacy for all who enjoy wild places is too high a price to pay. We elected Tom Corbett, not Grover Norquist, as Governor.
[ ] Lawmakers have a constitutional duty, as written in Article 1, Section 27 of the State Constitution, to preserve the state’s clean air, clean water and natural resources for future generations.
==============================================
R. Martin
Coordinator
www.PaForestCoalition.org
Mission: Good Stewardship of our Public Lands
Caring for what God has created
Republicans for Environmental Protection
http://www.repamerica.org/
Allegheny Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited 
Leave a Reply