Deer, Drilling and other Wildlife Considerations

Page 40 in Mar 13 Mulligan Shopping Guide

In a recent gas industry ad, hunter and sportsman Alan Probst proclaims that natural gas drilling will benefit wildlife.

On the one hand, he’s right. The pipeline right-of-ways that cut through forests, will need to be kept free of trees for as long as the gas shall run. And as all deer hunters know, those right-of-ways make great habitat for deer.

What he doesn’t say is what everyone already knows: we already have too many deer for the hunters to keep up with, and that deer population has tremendous and far-reaching impacts on our forests.

If you grow a garden, or walk in the woods, you already know this. When is the last time you saw young tree seedlings in your woods? According to Bernd Blossey, associate professor in Cornell University’s Department of Natural Resources, it takes ten years for an oak seedling to grow tall enough to survive deer browsing. Most don’t make it past two.

He cites a research project in the Allegheny National Forest that demonstrated some of the impacts of deer on the landscape. Instead of excluding deer from areas, scientists enclosed deer inside of fences. That way they could control the population density of the herds. After tabulating tree regeneration for a decade the researchers found a clear relationship between deer pressure and the diversity of trees in their enclosures: a more diverse population of tree seedlings grew where there were fewer deer; more deer led to a less diverse forest.

Bad enough news for those depending on the back-forty woodlot to regenerate itself in a sustainable manner for the next generation… But the impacts go beyond timber interests. The researchers also looked at caterpillar populations in the various enclosures. Where the deer density was low, there was a high population of caterpillars; more deer meant fewer caterpillars. And that has huge implications for the forest-dwelling birds that depend on caterpillars to feed their nestlings. Some studies find an abundance of birds in the forest canopies, but few in the mid-story and shrubs.

And aren’t birds wildlife too, Alan?

Drilling is Not Compatible With Multiple-Use State Forest Mandates

Allegheny National Forest (Allegheny Defense Project)

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) manages more than 785,000 acres of state forest. These are lands that are managed for multiple uses including timber harvest, recreational activities, conservation and, if the strategic plan is adopted, gas drilling.

Problem is, industrialized gas drilling isn’t compatible with other forest uses. Just ask Bill Belitskus, president of the board for the Allegheny Defense Project. The most visible impact of drilling, he says, is the explosion of access roads and pipeline right-of-ways criss-crossing the forested hillsides.

Drilling relies on a massive road system to bring machinery, rig parts and water to the site, and a system of pipelines for getting gas to market. Each of those road cuts and right-of-ways slices the forest into smaller and smaller fragments.

Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest is home to 12,000 - 15,000 shallow gas wells, and companies are now applying for Marcellus permits. The larger pads and wider roads, built to accommodate heavier trucks, will only exacerbate the fragmentation, Belitskus said.

Belitskus tallied up the acreage used by drilling at one site: 5 acres for the pad, a 10-acre fresh-water impoundment, a 1 – 2 acre frack pit and land for the access roads adds up close to 20 acres. Given the industry’s projection of 30,000 new wells in PA by 2020, he worries the disruption on the landscape will be significant and long term.

“Right now they’re drilling anchor wells,” Belitskus said. This is when a company drills a single well on a unit and then packs up their gear and heads to another unit to drill a well.

The strategy, Belitskus explained, is to get a hole in the ground and then hold the leases “by production” until they can get back to complete their drilling. That might take ten years, and the companies don’t have to do any remediation until they finish drilling activities.

How does drilling impact other forest uses? Stormwater runoff from road and well pad construction adds sediments to trout streams. Lowered oxygen levels and increased pollutant levels can reduce fish populations and, in the case of sensitive species, kill them outright.

from Allegheny Defense Project

Road and pipeline right-of-ways provide corridors for invasive species that change the character of the forests and affect timber harvest, sugaring and mast production for wildlife. Birds and other species that require large areas of continuous forested land are put at risk.

And then there’s recreation. Shellie Northrup, an avid hiker and member of two trail associations, says hikers report coming across flaring wells, piles of tree trunks blocking trails, and well pads that obliterate paths. Drilling affect the aesthetics of an afternoon hike, and presents a safety hazard when sharing public lands used for recreation. 

Read more about Allegheny Defense Project here. You can read a longer article from the print edition of Broader View Weekly here in a couple weeks.