School district may sign gas lease

Group of citizens protests

BY TOM KANE

tkane@riverreporter.com

HONESDALE, PA — A group of concerned citizens attended the work session of the Wayne Highlands school board on March 9 to weigh in on whether the school board should sign a lease with a gas drilling company for two properties where schools are located.

About 40 people attended the meeting, with 10 speakers addressing the board. Of the 10, only one was in favor of drilling.

The two school properties are a 31-acre parcel at the Preston Elementary School in Lakewood and a 23-acre property at the Damascus Elementary School in Damascus. The Hess Oil Company, which has signed a lease with the Northern Wayne Property Alliance (NWPOA), is proposing that the district sign a lease for the two school properties. No representative of Hess Oil attended the meeting.

Naomi Teppich, a Damascus resident with children in the Damascus school, typified the comments of the other speakers. “I cringe at the possibility that you would even consider drilling where young children would be spending so much time close to a drilling site,” she said.

This comment was repeated by nearly every other speaker.

The one speaker who supported leasing, Owen Fredericks, was a resident of New York City and Wayne County who advises people in signing a lease that protects their rights. He said he advised the Schuylkill Regional School District in Bradford County in their signing of a lease contract last December. He said that the school system received $5,750 per acre for 78 acres and will receive a 20 percent royalty for any future discovery of gas on their property.

“The dangers to the environment are minimal,” he said.

“We are merely discussing this offer by Hess Oil, and will not make any decision until we have gathered sufficient information,” said Thomas Jenkins, school district superintendent. “We want to see all sides of the issue, including how much money the school district would realize and also what the downsides of signing would be.”

Jenkins said some of the downsides would involve the safety of the drilling process as well as the dangers to water and other environmental complaints.

At an interview before the meeting, Jenkins said, “Obviously, it could generate revenue for the school district, but we’ve got to make sure that everyone is safe and that it is done properly,” he said.

Jenkins said the board would take a considerable amount of time in making its decision.

He did not expect Hess to be interested in any other school properties, since the company is limited to northern Wayne because of its agreement with NWPOA.

While the district is suffering from funding shortfalls like everybody else, it is not in any dire monetary crisis, he said. “We have not cut any personnel or any programs this past year and do not expect to do so in the next budget which we are now considering.”

The only cuts were those caused by attrition when a staff person retired or left the district. “We did not replace these folks and will not during the next budget year,” Jenkins said.

The present school budget increased the property tax by 3.2 percent, which raised the millage to 0.1428, he said.

In the last few years the district was able to use money from gaming to reduce property taxes, but he was not sure whether that would happen this year.