by Curt Ashenfelter, Executive Director
The following is testimony presented to Representative Richard Mirabito’s House Democratic Policy Committee hearing on House Bill 2318 and Leasing of State Parks/Forests on Monday, July 28, at 2 PM at Lycoming College, Mary Lindsay Welch Honors Hall, Corner of East Fourth and Basin Streets, Williamsport, PA 17701.
Good afternoon, Representative Mirabito and other members of the committee. My name is Curt Ashenfelter, Executive Director of the Keystone Trails Association.
The Keystone Trails Association works to provide, preserve, protect, and promote recreational hiking trails and hiking opportunities in Pennsylvania. Our association represents over 30 local hiking clubs throughout Pennsylvania and the 3.8 million Pennsylvania hiking community.
The Keystone Trails Association seeks much greater input into significant decisions affecting state forest lands in Pennsylvania. We seek much greater transparency and accountability on the part of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
Pennsylvania’s state forests are public lands, and DCNR is required by law to manage our public land as a trustee for the benefit of all Pennsylvanians, not just the gas drillers. Recent developments involving the Loyalsock State Forest in Lycoming County have shown that DCNR is not required to engage the public when it makes decisions concerning state forests.
The Keystone Trails Association is supportive of House Bill 2318 because it will require DCNR to provide notice and seek public input before authorizing gas drilling on state forest lands. Our members hike state forest lands on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. We have the right to know what developments are being proposed on public lands that will affect hikers and their constitutional right to clean air and clean water. And we have a responsibility to comment on those proposed developments not only to protect current hikers, but for future generations as well.
We believe 6 public hearings throughout the state would be helpful before any gas drilling is allowed in state forests. It is important for hikers from all regions of Pennsylvania to comment. For while a particular state forest may be in one region, hikers who use the state forest trails come from all regions of Pennsylvania.
To comment meaningfully, we must have access to the proposed development plans before the meetings. DCNR must share with the public the agency’s analysis of the impacts of the proposed gas drilling on recreational resources for hiker input to fill in the missing or overlooked pieces.
Current gas drilling is impacting many hiking trails in Pennsylvania. Future gas drilling will only add to the long, dirty laundry list of distressed hiking trails. While we have shared numerous gas driller/hiking trail conflicts with DCNR, we are not convinced that they are listening.
HB 2318 will provide the hiker community with the opportunity to comment on gas drilling impacts and learn how DCNR plans to diminish those impacts. While DCNR may understand many of the impacts, the hiker community can serve to fill in the missing pieces. Our members hike and maintain hundreds of miles of trails in the Marcellus region of Pennsylvania, including the Old Loggers Path and 19 other long-distance hiking trails. Gas drilling has already caused harm to many of these trails.
Current conflicts include
1. Placing well pads directly on or adjacent to trails
2. Expanding roads and building new roads on or near trails
3. Loud sounds of compressor stations bringing industrial-level noise pollution to wilderness settings (numerous instances, numerous trails, numerous years)
4. Truck traffic continuously causing loud noises and dust
5. Stream pollution which prohibits hikers from taking water from streams and purifying it for cooking and drinking, a potentially life-threatening situation for backpackers who depend on restocking water supplies on the trail during multiday hikes (Quehanna Trail, 2011, and Mid State Trail, 2012)
6. Seismic charges placed directly on hiking trails (Donut Hole Trail, 2012)
7. Changing the character of the forest around the trails, loss of canopy and forest fragmentation, and
8. Overzealous security guards who chase hikers off trails (numerous instances, numerous trails, numerous years).
It is clear that gas drilling is harming Pennsylvania’s state forests and impacting hikers’ enjoyment of the wonderful trail network built by thousands of volunteers over many years and decades. Hikers and other Pennsylvanians such as hunters and bird watchers do not want to hike trails destroyed by gas drilling. Many hiking trails are characterized by thick woods, wild streams, and sweeping vistas unimpeded by gas drillers, gas drilling rigs, gas pads, compressor stations, and pipelines.
Pennsylvania’s hiking trails are enjoyed annually by hundred of thousands of visitors. Hundreds of people spoke at the one public meeting DCNR has held concerning gas drilling in state forests. However, those comments were not recorded or documented. Little is known if DCNR acted on any of the comments. HB 2318 would change that.
KTA has been active in maintaining the hiking trails in state forests for decades. Hiking trails benefit local communities by attracting tourism through outdoor recreation. Backpackers often frequent local communities to eat, socialize, or lodge before or after a hike. The nearby Old Loggers Path is well known in local communities, such as Ralston. Greater publicity has helped bring attention to the Old Loggers Path nationwide and has widened the community of hikers that know about—and plan to hike—this trail.
HB 2318 will help protect exceptional-value parts of the state, such as the Old Loggers Path, from the destruction of gas development. Gas drillers seek to open the land to gas development, and drill wells, build compressor stations, water impoundments, pipelines, and new roads with little comment from the public.
Last June, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources held a public hearing at Lycoming College, providing KTA with the opportunity to comment concerning forest road expansion, well pad citing, reservoir construction, gas drilling, pipeline and compressor station citing, and construction and other gas development impacts in the Loyalsock State Forest. At that time, I noted that for generations, hikers have enjoyed the pristine beauty of the Loyalsock State Forest and the unique charms of the Old Loggers Path. And as hikers and volunteer maintainers, we believe in the responsible management of our public lands, that government will be transparent and fair, and that our volunteer work will be respected by Harrisburg. Bad behavior on the part of gas drillers in other state forests cannot be allowed to be repeated in the Loyalsock State Forest.
Gas drillers do not report how many people will leave the outdoors because of gas drilling activity and how much the Commonwealth and its communities would lose in revenue.
Pennsylvania’s 3 million hikers spent $955 million, support 12,500 jobs, and paid $176,900,000 in taxes related to their activities in 2005. Gas drilling will deprive the state of valuable tourist dollars and deprive Pennsylvania citizens of healthy outdoor recreation.”
Since that meeting, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources released its much-anticipated Shale-Gas Monitoring Report in April of this year. The 265-page report covers a lot of ground. The report is chilling in many ways—some for what it reports and some for what it does not report.
It is discouraging that despite the public hearing DCNR held in June of 2013, during which the Keystone Trails Association reported on 4 areas of shale gas impacts to hiking trails, only one item from that public testimony found its way into the report. If DCNR is only reporting on 25 percent of the impacts statewide, they are badly missing the mark.
Last June, I reported on 4 areas of hiker/gas driller conflicts. Of the 4 impacts to hikers, only one—the loud sounds of compressor stations bringing industrial-level noise pollution to wilderness settings—found its way into the report.
Concerning noise, the report states that because of the size of their land base, state forests provide a unique opportunity for dispersed, low-density outdoor recreation that cannot be obtained from small forest areas or from private ownership. The undeveloped wild character of state forests offers peace, solitude, and a feeling of remoteness for many users.
Ambient noise can dramatically affect a user’s recreational experience and generate conflict. Gas compressor stations produce continuous noise and thus have the potential to greatly impact the experiences of the recreating public. The Bureau’s objective is to maintain and perpetuate a visitor’s anticipated recreational experience on state forest lands and to maintain the wild character of the state forest.
The Guidelines for Administering Oil and Gas Activity on State Forest Lands include recommended thresholds for compressor noise levels. When no suitable alternatives exist and a compressor station must be sited on state forest lands, the operating noise level of the compressor station should not exceed 55 dB at any distance greater than 300 feet from the compressor building.
Measurements at 6 compressor stations monitored on state forest lands were louder than the 55-dB guidelines. The 6 measured compressor stations all exceeded the limits ranging from 55.61 to 69.33.
The impact of shale gas on hiking trails in Pennsylvania is real and it is significant. HB 2318 provides hikers with the opportunity to share their observations and concerns with DCNR before significant decisions are made that will destroy hiking trails.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.