Natural gas regulations don't support Kohring's assurances

Spectrum, by Jennifer McGill

I was saddened when I read Vic Kohring's Spectrum piece in the Sept. 16 issue of the Frontiersman. With sweeping political generalities, he dismissed the legitimate and genuine concerns of many Valley residents, the very people that he has been chosen to represent.

The fact is that Mr. Kohring and his colleagues in the Legislature have created a program that with minimal restrictions (except that the state owns the subsurface rights), opens up vast areas of the people's public lands and private property to a first-come, first-serve leasing program. There has been no up-front determination of the suitability of these lands for this kind of development. The state is, in effect, giving away the farm as they say. And because it's a noncompetitive leasing process, there is no way to assure that the state is getting the most value from this giveaway of our public and private lands. There is no evaluation of the qualifications of the leasees that the state is graciously inviting into our state and onto our lands to take anywhere from 87.5 to 93.75 percent of the profits made from this gas. This is a perfect set-up for the horror stories of the Lower 48 to be visited upon us here.

While Vic says that the Department of Natural Resources will not allow a company to drill for gas next to a house or a school, the fact is that as the regulations are currently written, they can allow just that. He also says that DNR will not permit activities that disrupt one's property, but the fact is that they can permit just that. He also says that there will be plenty of opportunity for public comment before the drilling permits are issued. Sure, maybe public comment will get a well moved over five feet or save some trees that might otherwise be taken, but the truth is that once a drilling company has a lease, logic dictates that the state certainly will not deny that company the opportunity to drill on that lease. I don't think that unlimited access to our land and resources by industry was what any voter had in mind when our legislators were elected, regardless of their political affiliation. And given that the citizens had to create their own public process on this issue to date, the 'trust me, I'm from the government' rhetoric is wearing a bit thin.

So we're left with a leasing program that forces the state to issue leases without any further consideration of the appropriateness of the land for this high-impact kind of development and a permitting system that will not deny a lessee a permit to drill. On top of that, we are being asked to trust the Department of Natural Resources, a state agency whose mission is to develop our natural resources, to force companies with big profits in mind to 'do it right.' And if the people want input into the process, well, they can just comment during the state approval process. And to quote Vic, "if time proves that flaws exist in current law, I will support fixing them."

How do you feel about attending every public meeting and commenting on every drilling permit that the state is going to issue once the gas starts flowing and the companies -- reputable and not -- start flocking to the Valley? How are you going to keep track of it all? Exactly my point. In areas of the Lower 48, there are tens of thousands of these wells. What proof of flaws in the current law does Vic need before he starts fixing them? There are plenty of Valley residents who are already painfully aware of the flaws in the existing laws. Problem is that due to generalizations and politically induced deafness, Mr. Kohring is not listening to them. Any intelligent person would anticipate potential problems and have regulations in place up front rather than waiting for the problems to manifest. We have plenty of examples of problems to work from, the Lower 48 has been kind enough to supply us with those.

It is interesting that Mr. Kohring brought up the quote from George Washington: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master." What we need now is for our government to be the dangerous servant of the people, and the fearsome master of industry. Somewhere along the line, our legislators have forgotten that their mission is to serve the people, not industry. Industry is also here to serve the people, to meet our needs. We as the people of the Valley should have the greatest role in deciding whether or not this type of industry meets our needs.

Jennifer McGill is an environmental specialist with Chickaloon Village.