On July 24th, the Keystone Trails Association and six other advocacy groups met with Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Acting Secretary Ellen Ferritti and eight staff members to discuss a more public policy process concerning natural gas drilling in the Loyalsock State Forest.

Our goal was to build a meaningful public engagement that works for the department and also provides the public with specific site development data so the public can understand what is being proposed, how environmental concerns are affected, and what is being done about it.

Acting Secretary Ferritti began the meeting by stating that this is a transition time and a good chance to start over. DCNR is looking forward to the process of moving forward and now is the time for any comments and questions. She added that the department will be meeting with other stakeholders to seek feedback. She then turned the meeting over to State Forester Dan Devlin.

Devlin proceeded to explain that he and the department know why we were there, and elaborated on a series of concerns that included Rock Run, Pleasant Stream, the Old Loggers Path, Sharp Top Vista, the Masten Ghost Town, eight or nine endangered species, wetlands, water quality, loss of wild area, forest fragmentation, and industrialization of the forest.

Devlin then explained a public policy process that would include the current meeting, meetings with other stakeholders, and meetings with the two companies who are most interested in gas drilling on the Clarence Moore Lands in the Loyalsock State Forest. He expressed the department’s position, that their concerns are our concerns, and that the various meetings would progress in a back-and-forth process. However, he also asked for our patience. He indicated that they have not met with Anadarko Petroleum Company in nine months, and did not know when the next meeting might occur. He pledged to come back to us with the details of the meeting and then go to the companies with our input; that it would be an iterative process.

Representatives from Audubon Pennsylvania, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, Sierra Club, Forest Coalition, the Responsible Drilling Alliance, PennFuture, Loyalsock Creek Watershed Association, and Keystone Trails Association (myself) then had an opportunity to pose questions to DCNR.

After the meeting, DCNR issued a press release that said, in part, “Our main interest is protecting the resource. That is our mission. It’s our job to balance the protection of habitat and recreational resources such as the Old Logger’s Path with the various uses of the state forest, including gas extraction. Members of the public can submit written comments on this issue to DCNR by email to Loyalsock@pa.gov.”

I was pleased to learn that the department is seeking a more positive public process and considers yesterday's meeting a new start. Their expressed interest in engaging our group and other stakeholders in an iterative manner, by sharing site- specific development data for our review is an encouraging start. We are not seeking a three-way negotiation between DCNR, the gas drilling companies, and our group, but we are seeking a process to engage the public. Although the details of how that process might work were not clearly defined at the meeting, I am looking forward to working with DCNR on a way forward.

Other groups present at the meeting were not as positive about the outcome. However, we will learn in the coming weeks and months if the meeting was as productive as it seems to have been, or if it was simply "window dressing."

Next steps: If you have not yet signed our petition to Governor Tom Corbett, urging six public hearings please do so today. Additionally, we will be presenting the petition (both the digital version and the signed, paper version) to the Governor later this month. If you can help gather signatures for that effort, please click here and download a paper version of the petition that you can take with you on the trail!

Your Hiking Advocate: August, 2013