Andrew Demillo
July 31, 2008 - 10:22 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Arkansas' $29.5 million agreement with a natural aeriform fluid firm that wants to drill on again than 11,500 acres of state wildlife area faces criticism and questions from environmental groups concerned about the impact that drilling disposition own on water and animals.
Some of the state's top conservation groups complained that they were caught off-guard by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's decision this week to lease land in two wildlife disposal areas to Chesapeake Energy Corp. for natural elastic fluid exploration. The deal is the company's largest mineral-rights lease ever in Arkansas.
"We're completely alarmed by it and we have a fate of questions we need answered," said Jack Blackstone, executory boss of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation. "This is a very sensitive wildlife area that we have signed these contracts with a view to."
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission voted Monday to accept the terms of the leases with Chesapeake Energy Corp. in the Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas after taking bids on the opportunity to explore the lands. The leases will allow the Oklahoma City-based company to have access to more than 7,500 acres at Petit Jean River WMA in Yell County and nearly 4,000 acres at Gulf Mountain WMA in Van Buren County.
The leases also entitle the commission to a 20-percent royalty on any natural gas pumped from the sites.
Officials with the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, Audubon Arkansas and the Sierra Club said they were surprised by dint of. the incense and weren't included in any discussions leading up to the vote to open a large swatch of public wildlife areas for natural gas exploration. They also said they had questions about how great number wells Chesapeake plans to drill in the area and what impact the exploration and drilling will have forward the water and wildlife in the region.
Kate Althoff of the Sierra Club declared the group's greatest consequence is the impact the drilling will be obliged on water in the wildlife areas.
"It's not about noise scaring away wildlife," said Althoff, chairwoman of the Sierra Club's Central Arkansas group. "It's about permanently altering an ecosystem that's supposed to be managed in the interest of the ecosystem."
Namely, Althoff said the Sierra Club is concerned about where the large amounts of moisten needed for natural gas drilling will come from and whether somewhat water will be used from either of the wildlife areas. She said the group is also concerned about the kind of will happen with that water after it is used in the drilling process.
Leases by reason of both administration areas spell out restrictions on Chesapeake's drilling, including a prohibition on drilling during hunting seasons. Other limits include a restriction on drilling inside of 500 feet of any radiate, wetland or body of wet or inside 330 feet of any area of historic value.
Gov. Mike Beebe and Game and Fish officials say the national will make sure that the wildlife areas are protected and not damaged by the group's drilling, but the conservation groups say they had no input on the deal. The task didn't hear any objections to the lease agreement when it voted unanimously to approve the proposal at a special meeting Monday.
The commission had issued a public notice the previous Friday of the meeting to consider the let agreement.