November 14, 2001

For Immediate Release
Contact: Jim Kleissler, (814) 223-4996

U.S. Forest Service Gives Oil and Gas Corporations Green Light, Every Time

The Allegheny Defense Project (ADP), an environmental group based in Clarion, PA, has obtained documents from the Allegheny National Forest that disclose the agency's routine approval of oil and gas well drilling permits, raising concerns over whether environmental regulations are being adequately enforced. In 1984, the U.S. Forest Service was granted the right to file objections to proposed oil and gas well sites in Pennsylvania's only national forest. Over 3,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled in the Allegheny National Forest since that time. The documents obtained by the Allegheny Defense Project disclose that the Forest Service has not once exercised their option to object to the issuance of any of the applications for these wells.

"It is an absolute and terrible sign of how mis-managed the Allegheny National Forest has become," said Rachel Martin, Outreach Program Director for the ADP. "Since 1984, oil and gas wells have been sited in locations that have obliterated hiking trails, damaged drinking water supplies, fragmented key habitats, and disturbed popular hunting and fishing spots. The fact that the Forest Service never once raised an eyebrow to these actions on our public forest lands should concern every American taxpayer."

"The U.S. Forest Service has never met an oil well that they didn't like," declared Al Chernoff, an ADP Board Member. "The disruptive noise created by the oil and gas wells along with the terrible smell are totally incompatible with any type of forest environment. The well clearings and access roads tear up entire hillsides and the wells themselves cause pollution problems in the forest."

Conservationists say that these revelations underscore why the Allegheny National Forest was recently selected as the most endangered national forest in a report released by the National Forest Protection Alliance (NFPA) based in Missoula, Montana.

"These documents, which demonstrate the Forest Service's failure to protect the Allegheny from oil and gas drilling, provide additional evidence of why the Allegheny is the most endangered national forest in the country," explained Susan Curry, Eastern Coordinator with the NFPA.

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Copies of the ADP's FOIA request (209kB), the Forest Service's response (45kB), and a chart of the oil and gas wells drilled each year (18kB) since 1986 are available in pdf format.

The NFPA's report entitled "America's 10 Most Endangered National Forests" is available on-line at the NFPA's web-site.