The dramatic resurgence of oil and gas extraction on the
Allegheny National Forest – the drilling itself, related road
construction and clearing of land – has sparked concern from
visitors and local residents alike.

And ANF officials themselves have been left to sort out
potentially conflicting interests of those who use the forest for
recreation, and those who use it as part of their livelihood.

Amid this debate is the government’s ownership of a mere 7
percent of the mineral rights within the country’s oldest
oilfield.

“We are stewards of the forest and all the multiple-use mandates
(that cover) wildlife, timber, and water and soil quality and
resources and so forth – for various uses,” said Stephen Miller,
information officer for the U.S. Forest Service in Warren.

“One of those legitimate uses on the Allegheny is the access to
the subsurface rights to those who own the oil and gas rights.”

Of the National Forest’s 513,325 acres, only 35,000 – that’s 7
percent – are owned by the government. And of that amount, 13,960
acres have been withdrawn from leasing.

That leaves the other 93 percent of subsurface to private owners
who have a legal right to extract them.

Ever since 1923, when more than 500,000 acres were designated
federal lands, the forest service has been working to promote
growth and to end the near desecration of the forest.

Oil was discovered at Drake’s Well in 1859, triggering the
Pennsylvania Oil Rush. For nearly 50 years, the forests in
Pennsylvania were subjected to aggressive logging as drillers
cleared land to make way for their wells.

Gifford Pinchot, a proponent of conservation techniques in
forestry, became the first director of the U.S. Forest Service in
1905. Nearly two decades later, in 1923, he was governor of
Pennsylvania when the Allegheny National Forest was created.

At the time the land was reserved as the ANF, it was determined
that forest system objectives could be achieved without the forest
service owning the mineral rights in the 513,325 acre forest
designation.

This historical information can be found in the “Pennsylvania
Wilds: Images from the Allegheny National Forest” book from Forest
Press, a division of the Seneca Highlands Association Inc.

The book also mentions that prior to Pinchot’s rise to creating
the forest service, a man named Joseph Rothrock, who had admired
the northern Pennsylvania forest before it was cut, became first
the president of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association and then
Pennsylvania’s first commissioner of forestry.

While he was commissioner, hundreds of thousands of acres were
sold at sheriff’s sales and were reclaimed and reforested by the
state, adds the book.

“We are lucky we have a fairly resilient ecosystem – we have
been doing a good job of restoring it and that process will
continue,” said Miller of the past, present and future practices of
the forest service since its inception.

Since 1986, some 4,493 new wells had been drilled on the
National Forest – an average of 225 new wells per year. That
information is included in a draft environmental impact statement
prepared as part of the ongoing revision of ANF’s forest plan.

There were also 1,993 wells plugged during this time.

“We need to remember not just active drilling for new wells, but
we also have an active program to monitor wells currently in
production by working with the operators to decommission wells not
in service,” added Miller.

The release from the ANF adds that with the rise in oil and
natural gas prices, 688 wells were drilled on the ANF in 2005.
About 1,000 were estimated to be drilled this year and an estimated
9,000 oil and gas wells are in production, according to a September
report.

The amount of drilled wells could exceed 20,000. Additional
information in the report states that oil and gas bearing wells
could remain in production for 25 to 30 years, while some could
remain for more than 50 to 75 years.