Attorneys for the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania are asking U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin to find the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) in contempt for refusing to follow his 2009 order to process oil and gas development proposals in the Allegheny National Forest.

In papers filed July 15 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, lawyers for the plaintiffs — the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA), the Minard Run Oil Co. (MROC), the Allegheny Forest Alliance and Warren County, PA — accuse the USFS of violating a 1980 federal ruling on surface landowner rights, as well McLaughlin’s own order from Dec. 15, 2009.

At issue are efforts by a PIOGA member — SWEPI LP, a Shell Oil Co. affiliate — to use groundwater and surface water from the Allegheny National Forest for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) at three natural gas wells. SWEPI completed drilling two of the wells in March at a cost of $7 million.

According to the complaint, officials from SWEPI and the USFS met in March and April to discuss the company’s proposal to drill a groundwater well, in accordance with the 1980 ruling’s requirement for a 60-day consultation period. SWEPI said the company would save $1.5-2 million per well instead of transporting water in by truck.

But in a June 6 letter forest supervisor Leanne Marten said the company did not have the right to withdraw groundwater from the park, saying, “The United States alone has the right to use groundwater located under these National Forest System lands.” The USFS then appears to have unilaterally issued a ban on using national forest water for fracking.

McLauglin had ruled in 2009 that the USFS could not require a review of oil and gas companies’ activities in the Allegheny National Forest under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), nor could the USFS implement a forestwide drilling ban there (see NGI, Dec. 22, 2009).

Fred Fesenmyer, CEO of Bradford, PA-based MROC, told NGI that the USFS has appealed McLaughlin’s ruling and that his company and the other plaintiffs were still awaiting a ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the case, also known as Minard Run Oil Company v. United States Forest Service et al.

“This is a very bad turn of events for the industry, and it doesn’t put the forest service in a very good light either,” Fesenmyer said last Wednesday. “The forest service is coming up with ways to slow the producers down, and now they have come up with this idea that the forest owns the water underneath the surface.”

Other defendants in the case include the Sierra Club, the Allegheny Defense Project and Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. Those groups had filed their own lawsuit against the USFS in November 2008, accusing the agency of failing to comply with NEPA (see NGI, June 15, 2009).

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