THE BOB CHARLES SHOW
has spoken about FRACKING Before
DOES ANYONE LISTEN ??
GUESS NOT !!
SEND ME YOUR COMMENTS
My Comment is if we all work together and just say "NO" this would stop....
Remember this, like in Charleston, W. Virginia this can POISON our Ground Water but when it does it is too LATE...
FILE
- In this May 10, 2013 file photo, Lynn Cameron of Mount Crawford, Va.,
looks out at the view while hiking the Mines Run Trail, on Shenandoah
Mountain, Va., which is in the George Washington National Forest in
Rockingham County, Va. Over the objection of environmental groups and
Virginia’s governor, a federal management plan released Tuesday, Nov.
18, 2014, will allow a form of natural gas drilling known as fracking to
occur in parts of the George Washington National Forest, the largest
national forest on the East Coast. (AP Photo/Daily News-Record, Nikki
Fox, File)
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Over
the objection of environmental groups and Virginia's governor, a federal
management plan released Tuesday will allow a form of natural gas
drilling known as fracking to occur in parts of the largest national
forest on the East Coast.
The U.S. Forest
Service originally planned to ban fracking in the 1.1 million-acre
George Washington National Forest, but energy companies cried foul after
a draft of the plan was released in 2011. It would have been the first
outright ban on the practice in a national forest.
"We
think we've ended up in a much better place, which is we are allowing
oil and gas drilling," Robert Bonnie, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's undersecretary for natural resources and environment, told
The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
"From
a policy perspective, the Forest Service allows fracking on forest
lands throughout the country. We didn't want to make a policy decision
or change policy related to fracking. This decision is about where it's
appropriate to do oil and gas leasing."
Land
in national forests is commonly leased out for commercial and
recreational purposes, such as mining, timber, and skiing. The plan also
addresses timber acreage, wildlife habitat and waterways.
Under
the new plan, which is subject to appeal, drilling will only be
permitted on 167,000 acres where there are existing private mineral
rights and on about 10,000 acres that are already leased to oil and gas
companies. The leased acreage is in Highland County, while the private
mineral rights are scattered throughout the forest. Many local
government officials near the forest objected to allowing any drilling,
and in September, Gov. Terry McAuliffe told the inaugural meeting of a
climate change panel that he wouldn't allow fracking in the forest as
long as he was governor.
Ken
Arney, a regional manager for the U.S. Forest Service whose area
includes the George Washington National Forest, had the final word on
the plan.
It is the first time
the management plan has been updated since 1993. Among other things, it
eliminates the potential for oil and gas leases on 985,000 acres where
it was previously allowed. Arney said local objections led to that
decision. The forest is located in Virginia, although about 100,000
acres of it extend into West Virginia. Bonnie said energy companies
could already have been drilling on the land they're leasing, but nobody
has wanted to.
"The economic value of these reserves is very low. We've had very little interest on oil and gas on the forest," Bonnie said.
The
decision was highly anticipated by environmentalists and the energy
industry because about half the national forest sits atop the Marcellus
shale formation. The formation is home to a vast deposit of natural gas
running from upstate New York to West Virginia and yields more than $10
billion worth of gas annually. A sliver of the formation extends into
northwest Virginia. The Forest Service said before any drilling in the
forest occurs, additional environmental analysis and opportunities for
public comment would occur.
Hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, is a drilling technique to extract oil and gas
from the shale by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or
gravel, and chemicals.
Environmental
groups fear the drilling would pollute mountain streams that directly
provide drinking water to about 260,000 people in the Shenandoah Valley.
Another 2.7 million people in Northern Virginia and Washington rely
upon the forest for a portion of their water supply.
An
industry group, The American Petroleum Institute, has said hydraulic
fracturing can be done safely and that the drilling poses no risk to
groundwater. The science on the impact of fracking has not been
conclusive.
Besides fears that
drilling and its waste would foul pristine mountain streams, opponents
have also argued that the trucks, wells and other infrastructure that
would come with gas drilling are incompatible with the forest's primary
attractions of hiking, fishing, hunting, camping, tourism and its
abundant wildlife. The forest includes a section of the Appalachian
Trail and attracts more than 1 million visitors annually.
It
is also home to the headwaters of the James and Potomac rivers, which
feed into the Chesapeake Bay. The estuary is amid a multibillion-dollar,
multistate restoration directed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
___
Brock Vergakis can be reached at www.twitter.com/BrockVergakis .
