More State Land To Be Leased For Drilling

• Scott Detrow
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  Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.
  
  Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.
  
  Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

3,000 acres of state game land in Bradford County are being leased for natural gas drilling.
Environmental advocates have bemoaned drilling in Pennsylvania’s state forests, worrying the clearings, well construction and truck traffic will permanently damage the wildlife. But Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser takes a different approach in an interview with the Towanda Daily Review, arguing “well pad and pipeline construction can actually benefit wildlife in the long run” by clearing out space and creating “meadow-like areas.”

The Pennsylvania Game Commission recently announced that it would be accepting bids from natural gas companies to lease State Game Lands 36, which is located across Monroe and Overton Townships and consists of over 3,177 acres, for the development of natural gas drilling.
“We’ve found that state game lands can actually benefit two different ways from natural gas development,” Press Secretary Jerry Feaser said. “We’ve discovered that well pad and pipeline construction can actually benefit wildlife in the long run. The initial excavation, construction and drilling processes are temporary habitat displacements. When the development enters the production stage, we’ve actually witnessed and photographed habitat improvements because well pads in production are meadow-like areas and pipelines provide a linear food supply.
“The other benefit is for the game commission, itself, in the form of increased revenue,” Feaser said. “Through lease payment and eventual royalty revenue, we’ll be able to provide more funding to the game lands, hire more personnel and acquire more lands.”

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