Wolf being pressured to restrict gas drilling

Environmental advocates are applying pressure on the Wolf administration to broaden restrictions on natural gas drilling on Pennsylvania state lands.

Gov. Wolf's Jan. 29 moratorium on new gas leasing, signed on his 10th day in office and hailed by environmentalists, had symbolic importance, but it went only so far.

The ban undid a limited Corbett administration policy that allowed new leasing of lands where no surface disturbance was involved. Corbett's executive order, which was never carried out, affected a relatively small universe of public lands that could be accessed from neighboring tracts where drilling is already permitted.

Much of Pennsylvania's finest recreational areas in the Marcellus Shale region remain available to natural gas development. About 1.5 million of the state's 2.2 million acres of state forests lie over the gas-rich shale. The mineral rights underlying nearly 700,000 acres are controlled by gas interests and are unaffected by the governor's leasing ban, which was erroneously reported in some media as a drilling ban.

State Rep. Greg Vitali of Delaware County, the ranking Democrat on the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said he was exploring ways to restrict drilling on state lands already under lease.

Wolf's options are limited because the legislature remains firmly in Republican control. "Anything that requires passing a bill is going to be a problem," Vitali said.

One of the new administration's more pressing issues will be drilling on state parklands. The state does not own the mineral rights on about 80 percent of the state's parks in the shale region. No drilling companies have yet dared to access natural gas in the parks; such an act would likely trigger a backlash.

Wolf appears to be sympathetic to calls to restrict drilling on public lands. As a candidate, he declared his opposition to drilling in state parks, though legally there may not be much the state can do to overrule a drilling company's private property rights.

Wolf told the nonprofit Allegheny Front radio program in Western Pennsylvania last year that he would explore using gas revenue to buy the mineral rights underlying Ohiopyle State Park, a 19,000-acre park in Fayette County considered the most vulnerable to drilling.

Wolf also said he would support a special impact fee for drilling on state parkland and strengthening the guidelines for administering oil and gas activities on lands controlled by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).

Until his new administration settles into place, Wolf's strategy is likely to lack specifics. His new cabinet includes an all-star cast of environmentalists who are expected to endorse a harder line with the gas industry.

John Hanger, whose appointment as secretary of planning does not require Senate approval, was environmental secretary in Gov. Ed Rendell's administration. John Quigley, Wolf's choice as secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, is Rendell's former conservation secretary and a vocal opponent of Corbett's drilling policies on public lands.

Quigley's appointment, along with Cindy Adams Dunn's as conservation secretary, will attract Senate scrutiny. Dunn served as president of the environmental advocacy group PennFuture before Wolf tabbed her at the DCNR.

For advocates like Vitali, the Wolf administration holds promise. "It's nice having access to the administration again," Vitali said. "With people like Hanger, Quigley, and Dunn, it's almost like having friends in there."

One of the thorniest issues the Wolf administration will face is managing gas development on state lands where it does not own the mineral rights. Under common law, the owners of the underground gas are allowed access to the land's surface in order to extract their minerals.

Of the nearly 700,000 acres of state forests leased for drilling, about 290,000 acres are privately owned. The state does not receive rents and royalties from these acres.

Those lands include the 25,000 acres known as the Clarence Moore Lands in Loyalsock State Forest in Lycoming County near Williamsport, which environmental advocates say presents the state with its best opportunity to restrict drilling.

The gas producers Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Southwestern Energy Co. own or lease the mineral rights on the Clarence Moore Lands, so named for a previous owner. The lands include some of the region's most treasured recreational attractions: the entire Old Logger's Path, part of Rock Run waterway, Pleasant Stream Valley, Sharp Top Vista, and the ghost town of Masten.

Commonwealth Court in 1989 found that, because of an unusual deed restriction, the right of the subsurface owner to enter upon the surface expired in 1983 on about 19,000 acres. Some legal experts say the ruling is open to challenge.

The Corbett administration's position has been to negotiate access to the surface with the gas companies in exchange for controls over a broader expanse of land over which it legally would have little or no say.

Mark Szybist, a PennFuture lawyer, said the Wolf administration could more aggressively assert the state's rights to block surface access.

"We think that with the new administration, the time is ripe for the DCNR to revisit its position on its property rights," he said.

Candidate Wolf last year told Allegheny Front that he favored no drilling. "I will support the commonwealth's right to block drilling on those tracts of the Clarence Moore lands in which the courts have ruled that the state has exclusive surface control," he said.

The new governor is slightly more circumspect. "Gov. Wolf will explore his legal options to prevent drilling on these tracts of land," said his spokesman, Jeffrey Sheridan.

215-854-2947 @maykuth