STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

To drill or not to drill natural gas may be the question this spring when it comes to Pennsylvania’s forests.

Pennsylvania’s countryside was a smoldering moonscape 90 years ago, the hardwoods decimated for fuel and the hemlocks cut down for tannic acid to process leather.

From those ruins, Harrisburg assembled the Pennsylvania State Forests, now one of the nation’s largest sustainable systems certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the gold standard for enlightened forestry practices.

But some officials in the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources fear the hard-fought “green” certification could be threatened by the rush to cash in on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

Pennsylvania is at the heart of this vast new find of natural gas, a formation that promises huge yields of the valuable fuel — and there are potentially huge economic returns for Pennsylvanians and for those who tap it. An obvious concern is how to prevent widespread environmental damage from the new drilling practices that will release the Marcellus gas. Some say the damage will be horrific and irreversible.

That’s not the opinion of industry officials, however. The oil and gas industry works to do things the proper way on forest lands, said John Stansfield, vice president of administration for Universal Well Services Inc. of Meadville.

“We have the proper technology to do this right,” said Stansfield. “We make every effort to be good stewards of the environment.”

Universal doesn’t drill wells itself, but provides services to the oil and gas industry such as well fracturing to force oil and gas to the surface, cementing of wells being drilled and high pressure pumping of wells.

The industry is regulated heavily by both the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Every well drilled must have an erosion and sediment plan for it filed with the state, Stansfield said. There also are various permits required prior to drilling as well as extensive testing of nearby ground water — both before and after — drilling, he said.

Solutions constantly are being sought for any problems such as the recycling of water during drilling operations.

Planning, permitting and completion of a single well takes up to a year, Stansfield said. “We go to great lengths to do things the right way.”

But, John Quigley, acting DCNR secretary, has questioned how much gas leasing can be tolerated on public lands after the latest auction put 32,000 more acres of forest into the industry’s hands — possibly causing the state to lose its “green” forest certification.

“Over time, as all this activity proceeds, we could very well jeopardize that certification,” Quigley told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “That may not happen immediately, but it’s something very important to us.”

The debate no doubt will be replayed in the spring as legislators consider Gov. Edward Rendell’s $29 billion budget request, which counts on raising $180 million more from gas leasing in 2010-11.

Next year, Rendell’s successor will likely face pressure to lease more acreage. Already, nearly half the 1.5 million acres of state forest that lie in the Marcellus “fairway” are leased to gas operators.

“A rush to drill threatens the certification of our state forests as sustainably managed,” Quigley’s predecessor, Michael DiBerardinis, e-mailed Rendell in March in a campaign that succeeded in slowing down legislators who wanted far more acreage leased.

Like Stansfield, other gas industry defenders say the DCNR is capable of accommodating Marcellus exploration while sustainably managing the woodlands.

“Frankly, we don’t think it’s a major issue,” said Patrick Henderson, a spokesman for Republican state Sen. Mary Jo White of Venango County, the powerful chairwoman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.

Drilling opponents overstate the number of trees that would be lost to gas exploration, Henderson said. The most recent leases limit operators to 123 drilling locations totaling no more than 645 acres — about 2 percent of the 32,000 acres leased. The most sensitive timberlands are completely off-limits.

“It’s not like they’re clear-cutting 32,000 acres,” he said.

Conservation and timber interests say certification is critical to the state’s embattled forest-products industry, one of the nation’s largest suppliers of hardwoods. The sector employs 70,000 people, down about 20,000 jobs since the housing market collapsed.

“The certification gives you market access,” said Paul Lyskava, executive director of the Pennsylvania Forest Products Association. “Certain end-users require FSC certification as part of their specs. If you have access to that timber, you have access to those markets.”

Though the DCNR’s 2.1 million acres account for only 12 percent of the state’s woodlands — most forests are privately owned — they account for 88 percent of Pennsylvania forests certified by FSC.

That makes Pennsylvania a key timber supplier to a growing market for lumber and paper that carries a “green” imprimatur. Last year, state forests generated nearly $20 million from timber sales — about half the amount generated five years ago, when the market was robust.

“We want to let people know we’re concerned about the environment, that we’re not just in it to rape the land,” said Marc Lewis, co-owner of the Dwight Lewis Lumber Co. Inc. in Sullivan County, which produces hardwoods used in cabinetry. His company bought timber worth $720,000 last year from the state forests.

“We’re in it for the long haul,” said Lewis.



Andrew Maykuth of The Philadelphia Inquirer contributed to this report. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.