Proposed Taking of Game Lands

[wew3]

From the Game Commission web site:

Pennsylvania State Game Lands

The Game Commission owns and manages nearly 1.5 million acres of state game lands throughout the Commonwealth. The primary purpose of these lands is the management of habitat for wildlife and provide opportunities for lawful hunting and trapping. Secondary recreational uses are permitted in accordance with the Game Commission’s regulations.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Pennsylvania State Game Lands (SGL) are lands managed by the Pennsylvania Game Commission for hunting, trapping, and fishing. These lands, often not usable for farming or development, are donated to the PGC or purchased by the PGC with hunting license monies.


Excerpt from a story in Sunday's Inquirer

The Shenandoah proposal is the largest of 21 pumped-storage projects for which Merchant Hydro has filed applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Most are in Pennsylvania, and many are situated on old strip mines or near wind farms.
One of them would be located in Bucks County, in Nockamixon Township — and not on an old mine, but on public lands owned by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The Shenandoah project, at 405 megawatts, is the largest facility in Merchant Hydro’s portfolio, and one of the more promising. In Rousselle’s plan, the Shen Penn mine pit would function as the lower reservoir. The upper reservoir would be built on nearby Locust Ridge, where Avangrid Renewables operates two wind farms with 64 towering turbines.

The firm’s application calls for building up to two reservoirs on the ridge, 560 feet above the lower reservoir, connected by three 48-inch-diameter pipes.

The upper property is owned by the estate of Stephen Girard, the Philadelphia trust that funds Girard College and also has substantial property interests in the coal region. Rousselle said he has an option to develop the land.

He identified potential sites by running topographical information through a computer to search for mountainous terrain that had at least 500 feet of steep elevation change, to generate a tremendous force from water released from the upper reservoir.

Unlike most established pumped-storage facilities, which draw from open bodies of water such as rivers, Merchant Hydro aims to build closed-loop systems that have dedicated lower reservoirs.

The exception is the Nockamixon project in Bucks County, where Merchant Hydro proposes to draw water from the Delaware River canal near Kintersville and pump it into a 150-acre upper reservoir on State Game Lands No. 56.

Maya K. van Rossum, head of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said her organization plans to intervene to oppose the project. She said that Merchant Hydro’s river intakes could cause harm to aquatic life, and that the destruction of forested game lands “is really a taking of public land.”

“People say, `We’re going to do clean energy,’ because that’s the word of the day. But there are clean-energy options that don’t have this kind of heavy footprint,” she said.

The Nockamixon project is one of three that target state game lands. Others in Tioga County and near Carbondale also have generated opposition filings from nearby residents.

http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...-20170616.html


I know that some uses are allowed on game lands - gas wells for instance - but these are low impact uses that don't destroy the land or interfere with hunting. I personally don't see how this type of use would be allowed. Maybe our resident WCO can comment.

Bill







.

[JenniferG]

They're going after the Girard property because they figure it's easy pickins'. They've broken the Girard will twice already so what's another? Girard is also a racist so that makes it even easier. The PA Game lands might be a challenge but nothing a little money to right people can't fix.

[gghbi]

If they are serious, look for a land swap, offering other land in exchange fot the SGL. Gives them a chance to get rid of 'junk' land and get what they want. If done right, it can work to our benefit, but don't hold your breath.

[bigandy1966]

Are the people going to stock the resivoir and allow fishing? No? Screw them.

[Marcus99]

Yeah I'd have to see a little more of the plan to voice an strong opinion. I heard they're trying to do one of these near Altoona also. It seems like no matter how clean the energy or whatever, nobody wants it in their backyard.

[Remington788]

Everybody knows that there are no deer on State Game Lands. Maybe a big lake will attract some.

[streaker69]

I'm torn here. If you spend some time looking at the lakes in PA, you'll find that PA has very few natural lakes. We have lots of small rivers and creeks and one big ass river, but lakes, not so much. Almost all the lakes you'll find when looking around on Google Earth are all artificial lakes. Many fresh water plants are getting their supplies form flowing water, not from reservoirs. If we go through a major drought we could very much end up like CA over the past few years. I remember back in the early 80's there was drought issues here in the mid state, and restaurants weren't giving out "free" water anymore.

That said, I don't particularly like the idea of a private lake taken from public lands, especially if the public will not have use of the lake. As a state we should be looking at ways of enhancing our water supplies, but we shouldn't be making those reservoirs private if they were taken from public lands.

[streaker69]

To add another thought: If public land is going to be taken for use by a private entity a binding agreement needs to be established that lands will remain available to the public for use in perpetuity. Any reneging on that agreement regardless if the control of the property has changed hands needs to be severe. So severe they wouldn't consider reneging on the agreement.

[danhr]

The PGC knows nothing about hydropower. I don't see how having a hydropower plant would fall into their scope of work. If the PGC covers SGL, and we now have hydropower and reservoirs, that means we need to hire specialists to oversee these operations. That does not seem logical, imo

Why not make it beneficial for both parties? If they need 40 acres of SGL to make their reservoir, but that will take that 40 acres out of the scope of work of the PGC, then give them the 40 acres, but they have to give the SGL 80 (just spit balling numbers) acres of hunting land. Then the SGL grows, and the reservoir still gets made. win win

[God's Country]

Need more info. If the lake remains open to fishing it would be good. Of course that would cause conflict with the PGC because the PFBC would take charge of the water.
There was an issue a while back in the Pocono's where the PGC worked hard to have a large tract of land gated (as they always do) after a popular lake was to be drained.
If the lake remains off limits then screw it regardless. It isn't public land BTW. The PGC is a private org. so I'm certain they will do whatever suits them ($$$).