Unified Sportsmen: Support Marcellus Drilling

V

vern

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Hello Forum Readers,

Dennis Wydra, northeast regional director for the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania Inc. recently sent an e-mail to the state Legislature in support of Marcellus drilling on state game lands.

With his permission, the text of the e-mail follows, but in order to provide proper context, it needs to be prefaced:

The larger goal of Unified Sportsmen is improved habitat for game on state gamelands. More specifically the goals are to improve management of existing lands, which means increasing the diversity of successional stages in the forests of state game lands (increases plant diversity and thus game habitat).

Mr. Wydra's personal fact-finding efforts led him to discover that two producing wells currently existing on State Game Lands 100 are in close proximity to a sportsmen club's existing trout-raising facility fed by Sandy Run. According to Mr. Wydra, while there was an aquifer disturbance in October, 2008, that created two-days of turbidity in Sandy Run, and increased turbidity is a "pollution" or "degradation", there were no fish killed in the trout-raising facility, and there have been no lasting effects.

Also note, I have NOT attached the video or Power Point attachments, as they seem to add nothing substantial to the message. Also, I am not a member of Unified Sportsmen.

Sent: Tue Feb 23 11:19:46 2010
Subject: Marcellus Drillers Set New State Trout Record

Dear PA Senators and State Reps:



It is easy for Conservationists to Support Marcellus Drilling when the drillers have NOT KILLED a single trout anywhere in Pennsylvania the past 3 years. In fact, the Pennsylvania Fish Commission hatcheries are all located in the Marcellus play. Gary Moore informed me this past October that the PA Fish Commission has not found a single trout killed anywhere in Pennsylvania as a result of Marcellus Drilling.



Great care has been taken by the drillers not to NOT to pollute our streams and now they are quickly moving to recycle ALL WATER withdrawn from the Susquehanna River Watershed. The Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania just released Conservationists Support Marcellus Drilling.



Open the 3-slide Power-point attached to this email and PLAY the slideshow to see Brook trout swimming just ½ mile away from the PA Game Commission’s only 2 Marcellus Wells in production. While Carl Roe recently reported to the legislature these wells caused environmental degradation, we discovered that EXCO North Coast, the company that drilled their wells, hit a deep aquifer and caused Little Sandy Run to get muddy for 2 days. Not a trout was lost or killed because of these wells and USP does NOT consider this to be environmental degradation.



The attached video was shot this past October after visiting the Game Commission’s 2 Litke Wells on SGL 100 and the cooperative brook trout nursery operated by the 3 Points Sportsmen’s Club and the PA Fish Commission. This trout nursery is also on SGL 100 about ½ mile away. The PGC’s right-to-know officer denied our request for information on these wells, but we found them anyway and took our own photographs. Soon you will learn why the PGC does not want anyone to know the real story about their only 2 Marcellus producing wells. See these Game Lands 100 photos below.



The Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania supports responsible drilling on ALL public and private lands in the Commonwealth and our attached article gives valid reasons for doing so.



Dr. Dennis Wydra

Northeast Regional Director

Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania

570-672-7278
 
Well, just like the opponents have propoganda, so do the proponents. Not a single trout killed in PA is one thing, but you don't need to kill them to degrade a fishery. Sedimentation may not kill fish, but it degrades habitat and can lead to unsuccessful reproduction, in effect KILL a fishery. Forget about the hatcheries and looking for dead fish, focus on the streams!

I'm not anti-drilling, but I am in strong favor of regulating it closely. Sedimentation is a huge issue, maybe the biggest cause for concern in the whole operation.
 
Yes, it is perfectly safe...

http://marcelluseffect.blogspot.com/2009/12/dep-fines-chesapeake-schlumberger-for.html

http://www.propublica.org/feature/pas-gas-wells-booming-but-so-are-spills-127

http://www.marcellus-shale.us/seeps_leaks_spills.htm
 
Good Web sites Tom!
Thanks for the links! Everything bona fide adds to obtaining perspective and context.
 
Yeah, tom's links are good. A few spills can be looked at in several ways. Thats a couple out of 1000's of well sites, which isn't too bad of a record. On the other hand, even 1 is too many.

This is the type of stuff that can't be totally avoided based on the "crap happens" philosophy, but it can be largely avoided with good regulations. The Chesapeake/Schlumberger incident is a good example. The company seemingly appeared to handle it responsibly, they found the spill quickly, reported themselves, and immediately responded to try and clean it up with minimal damage. However, it was still their tank that leaked. Was it a bad design? Did they make it out of cheap material when they should have used better materials? Was all of that fine and they did a shoddy job of installing it? That $15k fine was a slap in the wrist at best, heck they probably spent more internally just to have a meeting to discuss it. They should have fined the heck out of them, so that the company has a financial incentive to investigate further, redesign the tanks if necessary, inspect current tanks, etc., basically make sure it doesn't happen again.

But sedimentation is a not an isolated problem like that. It is a problem that every single well site IS going to cause to some extent, and all you can hope to do is minimize it.
 
I just did quick search to point out the provide a little contrast to the Disneyland world the original writing proposed.
 
I just visited their website, there they are a hunting site. Even in their forum (need to register to read it) there is only one forum relating to fishing, PF&BC forum.....they don't have the qualifications to comment of trout fishing. My take is that they were probably approached by the drilling lobby for support and sold a bill of goods.
 
Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania-are they nut the band of rebel hunters
 
It's been a while since I've paid much attention, but if the Unfieds are the same sort as they were a decade or more ago, I think they're much more a portion of the tea party-like property rights movement than anything to do with wild trout or clean water.

If so, it would follow that they would come down on this issue like this.

Nothing wrong with it, just masks off and all that.

They certainly do not represent my interests.
 
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