ELF KICK-OFF: Don’t forget! If you have reservations for The Era’s Less Fortunate (ELF) Fund’s Kick-Off Breakfast, that’s happening today.
See you at 8 a.m. at The First Presbyterian Church!
For anyone not going, today is the day ELF Fund gift tags will be distributed, so you’ll start seeing the tags on display in local businesses. There are a lot of local children and seniors who could use some extra cheer this Christmas season, so anyone who wants to volunteer as a shopper can start looking for tags starting today.
NATIONAL PARKS: Hal Harmon of Bradford sent a response to one of our columns from October in which we shared a description of the Allegheny National Forest/Allegany State Park region by a writer for the BBC who suggested the area be designated as a national park.
Hal wondered how that would impact a couple of activities that local people and companies currently do in the forest area.
Hal writes, “Someone in your column suggested National Park status for the Allegheny National Forest-Allegany State Park area.
“I’m not 100 percent on this but it is my understanding that national parks ban hunting and oil well drilling, among other things.
“Also, national parks have entrance gates and access fees. Thousands of people own land and homes inside the Allegheny National Forest. Also, there are several state game lands.”
In fact, the BBC writer, Zack Frank, suggested in his article that national park status would protect the forest area from activities such as drilling.
We didn’t know the answer until we looked into it after getting Hal’s letter.
We poked around a little, and while it is a common believe that there is no hunting or drilling allowed on national park lands, it seems there actually are several that do allow hunting and/or drilling. Many don’t.
If the National Park Service did take control over our local forest region, we’d be willing to bet that drilling would continue — under the guidelines set through the agency — as private entities own mineral rights and have been drilling there for a long time.
We don’t how how it would affect hunting in the forest area, but it is sometimes used as a wildlife management tool.
