In the largest mineral rights lease ever in Arkansas, more than 10,000 acres of the state’s forest land — in a part of the Fayetteville Shale — has been opened to natural gas drilling after the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission approved a five-year, $29.5 million lease with Chesapeake Energy Corp.

The year-long negotiations involved competition to lease mineral rights for the land, which includes 2,949 acres at Gulf Mountain Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Van Buren County and 7,578 acres at Petit Jean River WMA in Yell County. Chesapeake, which already has a $2.9 million lease in the Gulf Mountain WMA, agreed to pay a 20% royalty on the gas extracted, which the state would use to improve wildlife protection projects.

“Allowing exploration on our WMAs was not an easy decision,” said commission Chairman Freddie Black. Drilling may displace some activities by certain groups, he said, but it would not be allowed during the state’s three-month-long hunting season. “The decision becomes easy when we see the opportunity we have to reinvest this money for Arkansans.”

Gov. Mike Beebe encouraged the commission to partner with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission in a way that may enable those agencies to receive some of the lease and royalty revenues.

“There will be a lot of people that benefit from this, but those two agencies with the additional workflow generated by the whole Fayetteville Shale play are most deserving of your consideration,” Beebe told the commission.

In a separate agreement, Chesapeake would not be given permission to drill in the Little Red River Basin, which is home to the endangered speckled pocketbook mussel. The commission restricted how Chesapeake may cross the river.

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