Draft 2015 State Forest Resource Management Plan Professional Comments & Recommendations Kevin Heatley Restoration Ecologist

Shale gas operations, Tiadaghton State Forest, July 2014,
Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Introductory note:

The following are the comments and recommendations of professional restoration ecologist Kevin Heatley concerning the ecological impacts of continuing natural gas industrial expansion in the forestlands of Pennsylvania. His analysis is as precise as it is substantive and should be taken very seriously, as it would not only dramatically curtail current gas extraction operations in the state, but alter the way we comprehend the value of these woodland ecosystems. 

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Kevin Heatley:

As a professional restoration ecologist who has worked on conservation planning and habitat enhancement projects nationwide, I want to thank the DCNR for the opportunity to submit comments concerning the Draft State Forest Resource Management Plan. I recognize that, due to political pressure from Harrisburg and the shale gas industry, the natural resource professionals within the DCNR have been put in a difficult position attempting to meet their mission of, “...ensuring the long-term health, viability, and productivity of the Commonwealth’s forests and to conserve native wild plants."

Shale gas development of both our public and private forestlands constitutes a transformative existential threat. It requires dispersed industrialization of the landscape on a level that insures widespread negative impacts to both ecological structure and function. It is important to recognize that landscape-level disruption and forest fragmentation is an intrinsic component of this industry. The extraction and transmission technologies currently utilized to exploit shale gas require infrastructure that directly and dramatically undermines both forest resilience and sustainability.

Shale gas exploitation poses a serious challenge for the DCNR. The peer-reviewed scientific literature is clear: forest fragmentation (the dissection of the forest into smaller parcels) reduces biodiversity by 13% to 75% and impairs key ecosystem functions by decreasing biomass and altering nutrient cycles (Haddad et al. Science Advances. 2015). It contributes substantially to forest degradation and species extinction worldwide. Forest fragmentation increases the amount of forest “edge” (the interface between forest and non-forest). 

This transitional zone is fundamentally different in structure and function from interior forest. Edge is characterized by increasing light levels on the forest floor, reduced soil moisture, and a high degree of biological invasion from non-native invasive organisms. These impacts can extend up to 300 feet into the adjacent forest and have direct economic implications for forest landowners. Invasive species, for instance, have been estimated to cost the US economy over $120 billion dollars per year (Pimentel,D., R. Zuniga, D. Morrison. Ecological Economics. 2005).

Interior forest (forest that is at least 300 feet from non-forest) is an increasingly rare habitat. As a species we are quite adept at creating edge with roads, shopping malls, utility ROW, etc. Edge habitat can be created overnight, whereas interior forest takes decades to create. As a central component of unconventional oil and gas extraction, dispersed industrialization is proceeding across vast areas of the US without consideration of the cumulative impacts to forest connectivity. In our region the USGS, using spatial analysis with GIS software, has recently demonstrated that natural gas infrastructure is being placed disproportionally within interior forest systems. 

Penn’s woods are rapidly being 

converted into Penn’s woodlots.

As a specialist in terrestrial ecology and invasive species, I have performed a professional review of the Draft State Forest Resource Management Plan and submit the following observations and recommendations;

FOREST FRAGMENTATION:

The listed goal – “Forest fragmentation, connectivity and patch distribution will be considered in management decisions affecting state forest resources” is a soft target and inadequate to stem the escalation of fragmentation that is currently occurring. While I applaud the DCNR for its efforts to undertake a core forest analysis, this type of baseline information should have been collected prior to the initiation of shale gas infrastructure placement.

Recommendations:

I would strongly suggest the following additional goals with respect to forest fragmentation: 

1) No net loss in core forest within the state forest system of land holdings.  

2) All management decisions affecting forest connectivity and fragmentation will incorporate a full spatial evaluation of landscape dynamics on forest land (both public and private) adjacent to the state forest system.  

3) Shale gas infrastructure shall not be located within core forest patches.

INVASIVE SPECIES:

The threat of biological invasion by non-native organisms is inadequately addressed within the plan. We know from the science that invasive species and biological invasion is facilitated by both disturbance and physical vectoring mechanisms. It is also directly tied to the increase in edge that accompanies the expansion of both ROW and hardscape. Shale gas exploitation, by its very nature, requires the movement of vast amounts of soil and stone, along with the importation of labor and equipment from various areas across the United States. This is a clear recipe for biological invasion.

Recommendations:

1) Given the long term threat to both biodiversity and forest regeneration - Invasive species suppression and management should have a separate set of goals and objectives. 

2) The Guidelines for the Administration of Shale Gas Development on State Forest Lands need to be aggressively updated with respect to invasive species suppression. For instance – the current guidelines only address invasive management within the physical limits of construction. Given the science connecting the creation of edge habitat with the proliferation of invasive species the area of invasive monitoring and suppression should include the 300 foot zone in the forest adjacent to the actual infrastructure footprint. 

3) Given that forest edge, by its very nature, promotes biological invasion of undesirable species, edge management should be the responsibility of the entity creating the disturbance conditions and should continue for the entire service life of the infrastructure.

RESTORATION:

The current draft is substantially inadequate with respect to addressing the ecological restoration of degraded lands. It is logically inconsistent that the DCNR has effectively halted the extraction of coal and other minerals from land that has not previously been degraded due to the difficulty in restoring these sites yet it allows the development of shale gas infrastructure without full restoration planning in advance. Given the spatial distribution of the shale exploitation it is critical that ecological restoration and the promotion of an eventual closed canopy be fully budgeted for prior to any site disruption.

Recommendations:

1) As in the DCNR document “Guidelines for Administering Oil & Gas Activity on State Forest Lands” (revised 2013) the State Forest Resource Management Plan should clearly define and delineate the distinctions between ecological restoration and land reclamation. True ecological restoration replaces the full suite of structural and functional values that existed in the biotic community prior to site disturbance. Reclamation, in contrast, merely attempts to stabilize the site against soil erosion by planting an early successional palate of forbs and grasses. 

2) According to the DCNR’s 2014 Shale Gas Monitoring Report ecological restoration has not occurred on any shale gas infrastructure site. The report also documented a loss of 9,242 acres of core forest. In order to protect the ecological integrity and future resiliency of our state forest ecological restoration should be a stated goal under the Geologic Resources Management Principle. 

3) As an objective under the ecological restoration goal - No shale gas infrastructure should be allowed to be developed within a currently forested system without an approved ecological restoration plan in place. Such a plan must utilize a local reference ecosystem as a template, include detailed projections for budget and implementation, and require active monitoring and maintenance until closed canopy conditions are achieved.

MONITORING:

The DCNR relies heavily on the concept of adaptive management - monitoring the impacts of shale gas development and subsequently adjusting management guidelines based upon the results of this monitoring (Geologic Resources, Goal #4, Objectives 4.2, 4.4, 4.5) Unfortunately adaptive management is inadequate when dealing with non-linear systems that may be subject to threshold levels of change. An ecological system may respond to a disturbance with a sudden, catastrophic shift to a new baseline state without displaying gradual and detectable indicators of change. After breaching the threshold the energy inputs required to reestablish the original conditions may be so high as to preclude correction. Adaptive management is ill-suited to this type of non-linear dynamics.

Recommendation:

1) The use of the Precautionary Principle should be adopted as a key objective under Geologic Resources Goal #4. Currently not mentioned anywhere within the Draft State Forest Management Plan, the Precautionary Principle places the burden of proof to show an action will result in no significant harm upon the agent wishing to undertake that action. When the scientific data is not available regarding baseline conditions or ecosystem response, the action should not be allowed to occur. For example – no gas infrastructure should be allowed to be placed within watersheds with class A and wilderness trout streams until the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission has completed its statewide assessment of previously unassessed waters.

CLIMATE CHANGE:

The climatic change associated with anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions threatens to radically complicate the science of natural resource management. Cascading ecological impacts are likely as the phenology of both plant and animal lifecycles is disrupted. Spatial shifts in the natural range of forest species should be anticipated, as should be the challenges associated with increasing incursions of invasive species. The DCNR is to be applauded for incorporating goals and objectives with respect to climate change in the Draft State Forest Management Plan.

Recommendations:

1) The protection and fostering of forest connectivity should be included as a clear climate change adaptation objective under Goal #1. Forest connectivity is critical to facilitating the migration of animal and plant populations. 

2) The development of a carbon budget, one that includes the greenhouse gas emissions associated with shale gas exploitation, for the state forest system should be included as an objective under Goal #2. The development of a carbon budget will help assure that the state forest system is being managed as a carbon sink as opposed to a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

ECOSYSTEM BASED MANAGEMENT:

While the DCNR has made important strides over the last several years in shifting overall management goals and objectives towards an ecosystem-based perspective, the agency should embrace a central component of ecological science that has direct managerial implications – the concept of Carrying Capacity. Carrying capacity can be defined as the number of individuals or the amount of an activity that an environment can support without significant negative impacts to the given organism and/or its environment. While natural resource and land managers have long successfully utilized this concept in modeling harvest levels of wildlife and other forest resources, it also has direct relevance to the exploitation of non-renewable resources such as shale gas.

Recommendation:

1) In order to assure long term forest sustainability the exploitation of shale gas must be kept to a spatial and temporal scale that does not disrupt the regenerative capacity and biodiversity of our forest resources. Modeling this threshold level of ecological disturbance is a scientific problem, not a political question. Until the ecological carrying capacity of this activity is determined the Precautionary Principle should drive DCNR management decisions regarding the exploitation of geologic resources.I again thank the DCNR for the opportunity to review the Draft State Forest Resource Management Plan. The continued viability of Pennsylvania’s forests, both public and private, is dependent upon the sound application of good ecological science. I sincerely hope my recommendations will assist in this endeavor.

Sincerely, Kevin Heatley Restoration Ecologist Bloomsburg, Pa.

Literature Cited:

Haddad, N.M., L.A. Brudvig, J. Clobert, K.F. Davies, A. Gonzalez, R.D. Holt, T.E. Lovejoy, J.O. Sexton, M.P. Austin, C.D. Collins, W.M. Cook, E.I. Damschen, R.M. Ewers, B.L. Foster, C.N. Jenkins, A.J. King, W.F. Laurance, D.J. Levey, C.R. Margules, B.A. Melbourne, A.O. Nicholls, J.L. Orrock, D.-X. Song, and J.R. Townshend. 2015. 

Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems. Science Advances 1, e1500052.

Pimentel, D., D. Morrison, R. Zuniga. (2005).

Update on the environmental and economic costs associated with alien-invasive species in the United States. 

In: Ecological Economics. RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:52:y:2005:i:3:p:273-288.

Having our Cake and Eating it Too: Ex-PennFuture President, Jan Jarrett Throws a Tantrum

Jan Jarrett--thirteen-years-and-ousted president of the green-washing faux environmental group PennFuture-- got one thing right when she insisted that 

Pennsylvania’s mainstream environmental organizations are looking forward to working with the Wolf Administration to strengthen gas drilling oversight and improve regulations, work for cleaner air and water and begin to address Pennsylvania’s climate change challenges. (Jan Jarrett's Ad Hoc Blog: Fractivist foolishness)

If she's referring to her friends over at the Sierra Club, she couldn't be more on the dollar. As I have shown, the Sierra Club is so covetous of their image with the "have my frack cake and eat it too" governor that they not only refuse to raise a protest sign at Wolf's inauguration asking him nicely not to continue poisoning Pennsylvanians, they don't even want their members wearing Sierra Club hats and T-Shirts at the event--lest it offend the governor's delicate sensibilities and compromise their photo-ops with their new guy.
  

That "strengthening gas drilling oversight" and addressing climate change form a demonstrably contradictory set of claims is apparently lost on these Big Greenies; they just

don't seem to get it that the only effective way to address climate change is for the gas to stay in the ground. Everything else is a denial-soaked half measure that achieves nothing more than kicking the ticking climate bomb down the road where it will explode on our grandchildren.

It's fortuitous that keeping that same gas in the ground is also the best way to protect the health of Pennsylvania citizens, respect community' rights to self-determination, and act  like we care enough to behave responsibly toward the future.

But no matter.

For Big Greens like PennFuture and the Sierra Club Pennsylvanians clearly just don't rate as highly as do New Yorkers who can sleep at least a little bit better at night knowing that they won't wake up to frack pad flaring.

Jarrett of course, does get all this, and that's what likely fueled her nasty-gram to folks planning to protest the Gas Wolf Governor's inauguration:

Groups that cling to the futile hope that Pennsylvania will ban drilling for natural gas are planning to throw a tantrum during Governor-elect Wolf’s inauguration. According to an organizing website, these groups are urging people to disrupt the ceremonies to the point of being arrested.

 There are a couple of observations to make about this:

First, Jarrett obviously doesn't have a clue about the "groups" she's talking about. She doesn't identify the "organizing website" (any more than she identifies "mainstream environmental organizations"), and if--as is most likely--she means Pennsylvanians Against Fracking, or PA Food and Water Watch, or Clean Water Action, she's got nothing to worry about. These folks have no more stomach for the civil disobedience Jarrett refers to as "tantrum throwing" than do the Sierra Club members who stand foursquare behind a policy forbidding it--insuring a future of irrelevance for its mostly white, mostly affluent members. 

Indeed, for however much Jarrett's having some angst over whether the inauguration will be the suave affair she hopes, as many of the folks she accuses of "tantrum throwing" voted for Wolf as did PennFuture people, and their 'I "heart" Wolf" "photo-op action is a far cry from "the point of being arrested." 

Photo Michael Badges-Canning

Indeed, if holding up signs and smiling for a camera is enough to get arrested, all future hope for a democracy is dead dead dead.

But--second--this brings us to a crucial question:

What sort of wholesale abdication of respect for the first amendment does it take to label an exercise of the right to free expression--especially for the sake of calling attention to systemic injustice--"tantrum throwing"? 

Answer: When it threatens to upset the apparently fragile relationship between a governor already compromised by dirty campaign donations and frack-gas-extaction-friendly environmental transition team appointments, and Big Greenies worried they'll be identified as "radicals."

According to Jarrett's logic, it's not only futile to demand a ban on natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania, if you do you're just throwing a tantrum--and if you do that during the governor's inauguration... well, shame shame. 

That is precisely the safe and gutless reasoning that has gotten us:

Deforestation

Desertification

Endless Pollution

Species Extinction

and

Climate Change.

Let's consider an analogy:

Schman Schmarrett: 

Groups that cling to the futile hope that Schmensylvania will ban the compulsory relocation of indigenous peoples on arid reservation sites are planning to throw a tantrum during Governor-elect Schmolf’s inauguration. According to an organizing website, these groups are urging people to disrupt the ceremonies to the point of being arrested.

No one would deny that the forced relocation of any people is wrong. We'd all applaud the groups who worked to bring attention to this egregious injustice, and if that involved the nonviolent noisy disruption of a governor who claimed something completely idiotic like that we could have our cake--force people onto reservations--and eat it too--make life better for everyone, we'd all be on board.

So what makes fracking different?

Not much, I'd say.

Indeed, the absurd argument that we can have our cake--protect state forests and parks by reinstating a trampled moratorium, and eat it too--frack everything else-- is precisely what Governor Wolf's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) appointment--John Quigley--and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) appointment--PennFuture's Cindy Dunn are for. 

But this reasoning is just as idiotic as is the argument for forceably relocating indigenous peoples:

1. Many of the state parks, games lands, and forest are already fracked to smithereens. While "restoring" a trampled moratorium might staunch some tiny bit of that blood-letting, what it preserves amounts to nothing but fenced in dioramas unless we stop the destruction of the rest of the state.

2. The idea that we can frack to smitherines the rest of the state and preserve the state parks, etc. at the same time defies reason. It defies everything we have ever known about the myriad and complex interdependencies of ecologies, and it pretends in an almost psychotic fashion that what happens outside the forests does not happen inside the forests. That is nuts--and we will pay for this nonsense.

3. If you have any doubt whatever about how much of the state forests are already lost, please see: https://www.flickr.com/…/wendylynne…/sets/72157645174931918/

4. A compelling case can be made for the claim that the effort to preserve what amount to woodlots and picnic parks over the protections of the property rights of ordinary citizens, over the rights of communities to self-determination, and over the rights of the people of the Susquehanna River Basin, is racist and classist. The same people who stand to benefit--who have long had far more access and power than many of the rest of us--SC club members included--work with a corrupt state and a corrupt industry to "preserve" their hiking trails--but they are more than happy to trade your yard for the preservation of their "special places" because you may be poorer, darker skinned, less affluent. And that makes them as much your adversary as is the state and the industry--even more so. 

So, if what Jarrett's calling a "tantrum" is resistance to activities whose manifest illogic both cannot survive any rational or moral scrunity and clearly causes real and enduring harm to those most vulnerable, then for all practical purposes, Jarrett is Schmarrett, Wolf is Schmolf--Quigley is Schmigley, and Dunn is Schnunn.

I'd argue, in fact, that until we see the very real avenues of comparison between the harms caused by fracking--and it's corrupted political infrastructure--and other forms of gross injustice--racism, antisemitism, classism, and the exploitation of indigenous peoples, we are never going to become an effective force for bringing an end to these harms, not to mention reclaiming the environmental justice owed to them.

To the reader who rightly points out that we have an ugly history in the United States of forcing people onto abandoned land--and then using a lame euphemism to describe it--"reservation" (as if it were a "special place" reserved just for them)--I say, absolutely. Perhaps it seems inappropriate to draw such comparisons. 

I understand.

But the point is not necessarily to compare amounts of harm.

The point is to indict the system that produces it--over and over--and call out its self-appointed talking heads--Jarrett--who'd try to shame us into silence when we demand an end to the harm.

The irony is that Jarrett really just gives voice to what many already believe--that actually exercising your civil rights is somehow unseemly, impolite, inappropriate.

Of course it is.

That's why we drafted a Bill of Rights to protect it.

Transparency Is Not Accountability, More Comments Does Not Mean Anyone's Listening: Pennsylvania HB 2318 and the Ancient Greek Chorus

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

In the plays of Ancient Greece, the chorus helped to make transparent the motives and actions of the main characters on stage. 

Though undistinguished as individual actors, standing off to one side, the chorus offered comment and insight into the drama, helping the audience understand the tragedy unfolding and unpreventable. Indeed, while the chorus could sound lament, the message of its song was very clear: while you can know what is about to transpire, while you, like Cassandra, can call out the tragic future, you can change nothing.

Cassandra, seer--but disbelieved

HB 2318 reinvents the Greek chorus. 

It offers a similarly ineffectual function—greater transparence without any meaningful hope that transparence can become translated into change. 

According to the bill, DCNR shall provide to the public a comment period, a public hearing, and access to relevant environmental review. 

Audience, Democratic
Committee Hearing,
PA HB 2318
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

But absolutely nothing in this bill requires DCNR to take heed of that public comment—even outcry—any more than the actors in a Greek Drama are expected to heed the chorus.  

The chorus does not sing its lament for the sake of warning or informing the actors; they don’t even hear the lament, much less change their course of action at its warning. 

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

Neither is the provision of the extended comment period or the greater transparency of HB 2318 intended to be taken as warning to DCNR in the hope of preventing that tragedy called slickwater horizontal hydraulic fracturing.  

Richard Mirabito, 83rd District,
PA House of Representatives,
Sponsor HB 2318
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

No—the chorus exists only as a therapeutic device to placate the audience about a future they can do nothing to alter. HB 2318 similarly offers to allow the public to exhaust itself in comment, only to then be told to go on home by an agency—DCNR—that operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of the gas companies.

Were I a gas company executive reading HB 2318, I’d be laughing. I’d be thinking about how profitable a thing it was for my company that the public could be duped into thinking that just because they got to speak that somehow their lament of the ecological destruction and the sickness and the community erosion would actually matter to my company’s plans to convert their public lands into a gas factory. 

Greg Vitali, 166th District,
PA House of Representatives
Photo wendy Lynne Lee

I’d be amused at the prospect that this public could be suckered into believing that just because the permitting process might be slowed by their chorus of complaint, this would make a difference in the ultimate execution of my plan to drill. 

And compress. And pipeline. And export. And offshore the dividends. And then abandon the refuse. I’d say “Let them lament!” Because once they’ve had their say, they’ll go home, tell themselves they did everything they could, and go back to watching game shows and talent contests.

"Hiking" at Tiadaghton State Forest
thanks to PGE and the failed efforts
of our representatives to priotect it
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

HB 2318 is naught but a perversion of the democratic process. It pretends to offer us power—but it in fact strips us of our voices and leaves us like the Ancient Greek chorus—sounding an alarm all the while knowing there’s no one listening.

It empowers the gas companies by pretending to regulate them—making their actions seem more transparent—all the while doing nothing whatsoever to forestall their appropriation of public lands.

Audience, 7.28.14
Democratic Committee Hearing, HB 2318
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

We are left like Cassandra—knowing what is about to befall us on our own lands, in our own forests, on our own waterways, but able to do nothing but lament. 

That is a perversity, and we are morally obligated to offer it nothing but contempt.

Indeed, if we asked the question: how seriously does DCNR--the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources--take this bill?

Answer: they didn't even show for the hearing. How's that for listening?

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THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA

HOUSE BILL

No.

2318

Session of 2014

INTRODUCED BY MIRABITO, KOTIK, THOMAS, McGEEHAN, CALTAGIRONE, PAINTER, CARROLL, VITALI, MURT, McCARTER, COHEN, PASHINSKI, McNEILL AND DEAN, JUNE 6, 2014

REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES AND ENERGY, JUNE 6, 2014

AN ACT

1Amending the act of June 28, 1995 (P.L.89, No.18), entitled "An
2act creating the Department of Conservation and Natural
3Resources consisting of certain functions of the Department
4of Environmental Resources and the Department of Community
5Affairs; renaming the Department of Environmental Resources
6as the Department of Environmental Protection; defining the
7role of the Environmental Quality Board in the Department of
8Environmental Protection; making changes to responsibilities
9of the State Conservation Commission and the Department of
10Agriculture; transferring certain powers and duties to the
11Department of Health; and repealing inconsistent acts," in
12Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, further
13providing for forests.

Halliburton in Tiadaghton State Forest
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

14The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
15hereby enacts as follows:

16Section 1. Section 302 of the act of June 28, 1995 (P.L.89,
17No.18), known as the Conservation and Natural Resources Act, is
18amended by adding a subsection to read:

19Section 302. Forests.

20* * *

21(b.1) Unconventional gas development.--The department shall
22provide notice and seek public input before leasing State forest

20130HB2318PN3670 -1-

1lands for unconventional gas development or otherwise
2authorizing any major unconventional gas development project on
3State forest lands. Specifically, the department shall provide
4for the following:

5(1) A public comment period.

6(2) At least one public hearing or meeting.

7(3) Public access during the comment period to detailed
8development plans, including locations of all well pads,
9impoundments, access roads, pipelines, compressor stations
10and other related structures and facilities.

Tiadaghton State Forest
PGE Well Pad, Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

11(4) Public access during the comment period to a State
12forest environmental review that:

13(i) Analyzes potential impacts of the proposed
14development on ecological, recreational, cultural and
15aesthetic resources and public health.

16(ii) Discusses avoidance and mitigation measures.

17(iii) Analyzes development alternatives.

18* * *

19Section 2. This act shall take effect in 60 days.

Regular Session 2013-2014 House Bill 2318 P.N. 3670