Franklin, do not insult peoples intelligence, having your woodlands cut and having a well pad and the pipelines, compressor stations and roads that accompany them is nowhere near the same thing. Your woods, if properly managed, came back to trees, the well pad, compressor station, pipeline and road will never do that. And that does not even start to adress the noise associated with these industrial centers or the pollution. You are grasping at straws to defend the gas industry.

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That's straight incorrect. Well, sort of, anyway.

The pads will indeed be allowed to grow back in. The ones that poured cement will tear it out. The pond will be filled in. What was a several acre pad covered in trucks and equipment will shrink to a much smaller clearing, with a few condensation tanks at its center. All other equipment will be gone. Trucks will visit each site on occasion, but not be a constant presence.

Pipelines become pipelines, like every other pipeline out there. Weedy clearings in the woods. Good small game cover. Trees will not be allowed to grow, though.

Compressor stations will remain as is.

Roads will remain, but when they see less use, will look more like your standard dirt roads that crisscross our forests already.

Problem is, that for a MS well, all the equipment and stuff might be on site for 5 years since they drill 12 wells per pad. And when they do leave, they'll just open up a new pad a few miles down the road. So yeah, I expect the overall traffic and "industrialization" feeling to go on for 20-30 years.

We knew all that coming in. I'm not against the industry, not even against it on state land, but I would like to take a slower approach to it. Limit the # of active sites on state land at any given time. Once a well is capped and producing, THEN they can go make another pad. No reason to scale up to full capacity as quickly as humanly possible. The gas is there and not going anywhere, they have the leases. Make em be patient.

I'm most concerned about the engineering details. Slowing down would allow more testing of methods and materials to reduce leaks and blowouts. It would allow better monitoring because the authorities wouldn't be so overwhelmed. It'd decrease the amount of wastewater produced at any given time so that they can get a handle on processing it. There's a lot of advantages.

Drill baby drill. Just do it slowly and carefully and get out of the "boom" mentality.

Pat, I totally agree with what you are saying. the "boom" approach scares me. if history is any indication, any type of boom usually ends in a bust!

it is simple greed that is powering things right now. the companies want as much gas as possible, as soon as possible, and screw whatever comes in their way.

I agree with you about slowing it down, getting everything right, and proceeding cautiously.

in the end, we still have to live here, they don't.

Pat, Have you ever tried to grow trees on the type of disturbance associated with well pads? It does not work and it will not be for another 35-50 years, not in a few years, the well pad will be kept open in case the need for future fracing arises. The roads that have had 3 feet of stone that is not the same as a typical dirt road, that will not go away,not to mention they are 10-20 feet wider than the average dirt road to accomodate the size of the loads needed to get drill rig in

Yes pipelines become pipelines like every other one, problem being there are going to be 100's more of them going thru the woods in all directions and they have to be mowed so they do not provide cover for small game, they provide a disturbance.

In the end my original statement is not correct, comparing having your woodlot cut to gas development is comparing apples to oranges, and these well pads will never be grown back to anything resembling a forest in our lifetimes or your childrens, this is not the shallow gas development you want to try to pretend it is, quit the act..

The problem with the "go it slow" approach is that most people think that would be at about 10% of the current rate. Putting wells in at that rate would drive the price up dramatically. The basic infrastructure needs to go in if there is one well or 100. I'm also trying to see how that would be applied fairly across private land. An alternate way to go slow on state land might be to take one smaller area but drill at a high rate within it. That way the economies of scale might be preserved while keeping the aggregate risk localized.

Most of the arguments in this thread are related to drilling or not drilling. That horse has left the barn. The real effort should be in adjusting regulations, enforcement, and inspections around lessons learned. Recognize for all practical purposes drilling will continue on a large scale.

franklin you are correct about the infrastructure and to make the cost of the infrastructure feasible you need to have as many wells on line as possible utilizing that infrastructure. I remeber at one point a producer here quoting about a million dollars a mile to install piepelines for the wells in potter County as an average price. That is in addition to the cost of building the well pad, road and installing the compressor ,which will be changed every year or so as production rates change.

oh, and with the exception of Lycoming County drilling has slowed down considerably in the NC part of the state this year. Potter County is all but dead with drilling activity and Tioga has seen a decline as well, but that could change in a heartbeat.

Funny how some who claim to get joy out of what our forests and streams give to them are so intent in defending those destroying them. The majority of posts on here are for a common sense approach to drilling in our state forests, a tax, and strict regulations. Most people on here want swift, high fines and penalties for infractions. We are not looking for a ban on drilling, just careful consideration on how much and where it is done.

Back to the few on here who like to spew the drill baby drill at all costs propaganda. I would be willing to bet you live far enough away from this industrialization of our state lands that it has no real impact on you or your life. You have no clue about the effects a well pad has on your day to day life. Look back at some of these posts and others in the conservation forum. There are people who have invested lifetimes in their homes and properties and it's all for nothing because the industry decided they were gonna drill in their back yards. I would love for these people to have to move their home next to a drill site and have to drink out of a well that possibly could be contaminated if mother nature or a casing decided not to cooperate. Would they be singing the praises of this industry? Hell no! They are nothing more than hypocrites.

Jeff,
I live in the southeast and have only been to North Central a few times. If I lived up there, I would be heartbroken too. I'll never be able to enjoy Potter as I have in the past. Nor will my kids.
But it's here and the most you can do now is regulate .

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After the concrete is jackhammered out, and the topsoil bulldozed back over and leveled, yes, I have, and it works fine. Although you do still have to maintain some area cleared immediately surrounding the well. The cleared area shrinks but does not go away completely.

Franklin I understand the economy of scale argument and it is a valid point.

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Couldn't agree more. You and I agree on a lot.

Jeff, I assume you are talking to me in that rant, since I was the one who brought out the "drill baby drill" comment. I did not say at all costs, you added that. Nor did I sing anyone's praises. I too am for a common sense approach, and strict regulations with stiff fines for non-compliance. As far as a tax, I do not support a tax that goes to the state general fund, but I very much support the "impact fee." And I want to make sure to keep the cause and effect straight and orderly so that we know the impact fee is high enough, my gut says the proposed one is not enough.

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Semi-correct. I now live in SE PA, so yeah, outside of any gas fields. I'm from SW PA and have family there, have a camp in the ANF which I visit frequently, and I used to live in Coudersport, and still get up that way some. My brother is getting a tiny royalty from MS drilling (under his 2 acre lot, not on it). My dad has 5 shallow well pads in sight of the house, and a MS pad a mile down the road, though he is not getting any $$$. I also have a slight business interest in that I deal with customers who make drill collars and tubing for the industry. But I would describe this particular business interest as less important to me than my fishing interests.

You talk about common sense. Common sense isn't "for" or "against" drilling, those are emotional stances. Both sides seem to want to throw everyone into one camp or the other. But common sense lies somewhere in between, where you say lets do it, we recognize there will be impacts, but lets do it the best we can and try to minimize those impacts as much as possible.

Pat, u r either a bold faced liar or have no clue what u r talking about concerning remediation of the disturbance associated with Marcellus drilling. I am betting it the second one based on your claims that roads will look like any other dirt road in a few years and other incorrect statements u have made in the past. Your new born will be much older than I am before any of these sites begin to look like the woods that were there pre marcellus.

Pcray the rant was not specifically directed at you. Although you and I have gone around on this issue we do have some common ground on some things. I am not anti drilling. I am however against many of the ways it is currently being handled. I also am not convinced about the safety measures that are in place for this wide scale boom drilling. Our forests and streams are too important for this learn as you go, oops I am sorry I polluted your water, let me pay my measly fine and be on my way to the next pad attitude. No my rant was for another poster who seems to think he can convince others on this site that whats going on up there is just fine.

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True, Franklin. That's the best we can do at this point.

Getting back to the original post about Government owned parks and land being drilled. IMO, the State or Federal lands were put aside for future generations to enjoy....unspoiled. The exploitation of these lands may be "legal" at this point, but it aint "right." One could argue something that selective timbering will do no harm, and possible enhance the flora and fauna, but drilling and mining this land set aside for our children is a blatant sell out.

Where is Teddy Roosevelt when we need him?

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it is up to our elected officials to monitor the practices of such comapnies and if done right the impact will be very little ! . There are more oil and gas wells along oil creek in venango county than most other streams in NWPA or most of pa for that matter. Yet what i find odd is that oil creek has one of the best insect hatches per volume of water !!!!!!!! yes it does hold wild fish from TOP TO BOTTOM !

We tend to look at the forests from a very narrow slice of time. Over a larger time frame and left to nature without man's manipulation there would periodically large forest fires such that across a wide area like Pa various stages of maturity would exist. Man has altered this process and it will never return to an untouched state. One forestry tool that in some ways simulates nature is periodic clear cutting.

It's interesting to listen to the hunting groups complain about the overall forest maturity in Pa and how that changes the game population and locations. Many in that community are arguing for massive clear cutting to get back to the "glory" days of hunting that occurred in the 20s through the 50s.

If I were king I would not have planned drilling the way it is playing out. But today we are not politically able to agree on a practicable solution that an apolitical problem solver might propose. So I understand why the industry and those that agree with drilling go the "steam roller" path and just force it through.

Ironically, most of the state forests in PA wouldn't be state forest land owned by the state if it WASN'T for the fact that they were timbered and many cases clear cut. As logging progressed through the 19th century and into the early 20th century, huge tracts of land were cut, but not necessarily viewing timber as a sustainable resource. True, there was some cutting of second growth, and there was some selective initial cutting of the valuable wood on some tracts, and then some mop up to get the other wood. Also ironically, a significant portion of the wood that was cut was for use as props in coal mines. Once the timber was exhausted, the lumber companies sold the land to the state for $1 to $4 an acre. A lot of the forest roads follow old logging railroad lines.

I continue to say that NY has taken a more cautious and appropriate approach to drilling and permitting. They avoided falling prey to the boom mentality and they let their neighbor to the south go through a lot of the growing pains. Unfortunately, their neighbor to the south hasn't learned a whole lot from the growing pains, and thats the frustrating part for me. I don't understand how the state requires a reclamation fund for coal mining, but have nothing in place for equally intrusive activities, like oil and gas extraction.

Things will bounce back over time; I was struck by some of the pictures of seen from the logging boom days of denuded mountain sides, and piles of stark white logs, with their bark stripped off, lying in disheveled heaps at the ends of slides. The land looked raped and the logs looked naked, and I thought to myself that we're definitely headed into another cycle of that sort of environmental bruising, with perhaps not quite as visible effects. The effects of groundwater contamination will, I believe, linger much longer than a well pad site, or a beat up road. However, those same denuded mountain sides from the logging boom days are now tree covered and shade some of my favorite streams to fish in the state.