Official hopeful for gas drilling
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Recommend ThisBy Sally Voth -- svoth@nvdaily.com
A conservationist reacted with guarded optimism Friday to the section of a draft George Washington National Forest land and resource management plan dealing with gas drilling.
David Hannah, conservation director for Wild Virginia, had not yet read all of the documents associated with the draft, which was released on Wednesday.
"There are many, many associated documents, there are literally thousands of pages to look through," he said. "Neither I nor anybody I know has given it a good review yet."
Still, Hannah is pleased that the draft prohibits horizontal drilling for natural gas throughout most of the forest. According to the draft, horizontal drilling of the Marcellus shale formation wouldn't be allowed on land where the government owns both the surface and mineral rights, which is the case for 86 percent of the forest.
The draft allows traditional gas drilling, including in the Lee District area, in the Northern Shenandoah Valley, according to Ken Landgraf, staff officer for planning and forest ecology for the Forest Service.
Much public focus has been on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which natural gas is extracted from dense layers of rock using large quantities of water, chemicals and sand. Besides concerns about the quantity of water used, some opponents of fracking say it harms groundwater.
"The draft plan does prohibit horizontal drilling, which will prohibit some hydraulic fracturing, but not all types of hydraulic fracturing, so I think it's a very positive step, but I do need to look in more detail at that aspect of [the plan]," Hannah said.
He is concerned about the areas where the government doesn't have total control over drilling rights.
"Whether they could legally try to prohibit the horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracking in those areas, probably they could not," Hannah said. "That's definitely a concern for us."
Hannah also mentioned his disappointment with the draft's only designating about 20,000 more acres as wilderness.
"It looked as though the wilderness recommendations are incredibly inadequate," he said. "They're far too small. They're not recommending enough areas for wilderness."
But, he was pleased that there are plans to decommission 160 miles of forest road. Hannah said such a move would improve the health of the forest and the watershed, as well as save the Forest Service money by not having to maintain as many roads.
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