Pennsylvania’s 120 state parks are precious public treasures. They feature some of the most breathtaking natural vistas you’ll find anywhere. They provide opportunities to enjoy healthful outdoor recreation and solitude, and they serve as outdoor classrooms for environmental education. They’re integral to the Keystone State’s quality of life and its economic wellbeing. The parks return $10 to local economies for every dollar of state investment, generating over $818 million in local sales annually and supporting more than 10,500 jobs. They contribute heavily to the state’s $33 billion tourism economy, which is Pennsylvania’s second largest industry.

Our parks are a huge asset, and they are expertly managed. In fact, the system was named the best-managed state park system in the nation in 2009.

But all of this is in jeopardy. There is trouble beneath the surface of our state parks. Literally.

Sixty-one of Pennsylvania’s 120 state parks lie atop the Marcellus formation. While the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) doesn’t lease state park land for gas exploration, the Commonwealth doesn’t own the mineral rights – which include natural gas deposits -- beneath about 80 percent of state park land. Under Pennsylvania law, owners of those minerals have the right to develop their property. Indeed, the state Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that the DCNR could not impose reasonable controls on the surface operations of a driller who is developing privately-owned gas rights beneath a state park. If drilling damages the park, the agency’s only remedy is to sue the driller after the fact. As of yet, only minor gas and oil exploration in parks has occurred, but the value of those subsurface rights is rising with advent of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus gas boom. Now, the threat of drilling in our parks is immediate and widespread.

The impact of this gas development will be obvious. Land clearing, road and pipeline construction, drilling, and heavy traffic will shatter the natural and aesthetic values of state parks. They will damage Pennsylvania’s quality of life, hurt local economies across the state, and harm Pennsylvania’s tourism economy.

The gas industry has wisely avoided drilling in state parks, so far. And horizontal drilling technology could allow mineral rights beneath state parks to be accessed from outside their boundaries, without disturbing them at all. Well pads sited outside park boundaries could also still access the privately owned mineral rights below a park’s surface. Drilling under our parks may or may not be a good idea, but at least the unchecked surface disruption that is allowed under state law could be avoided.

We can hope that the drilling technology used would leave the surface of state parks untarnished. We can wish that the industry would voluntarily stay out of state parks. But as the old English proverb reminds us: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. We need to rely on more than goodwill or on the fact that drilling in parks would create a public relations nightmare for the industry. After all, two-thirds of Pennsylvanians oppose drilling in their parks.

The state must pass legislation to protect its parks from unavoidable damage from lawful drilling. At a minimum, we must push the surface drilling activities to beyond our parks’ boundaries. We must require protective studies for any proposed drilling activity and provide an opportunity for public comment when those studies are completed. And if drilling does disturb our park surfaces, we must impose significant impact fee on the drillers. The fee help the DCNR compensate for the loss of enjoyment and the damage to the public resource.

West Virginia, which owns a little more than half the gas rights under its state parks, prohibits gas drillers from disturbing the surfaces of its state parks. New York State recently proposed a similar prohibition. Pennsylvanians deserve no less.

Right now, drilling in Pennsylvania’s state parks is legal. But that does not make it right.

In Part 2, I will discuss drilling in Pennsylvania’s State Forests.

Image: Dan Domme/Flickr