Gas=open space

Nothing will do more to save farmland and preserve open space than natural gas drilling. It is the single most effective tool available for protecting the rural character valued by all who live here, because it rewards landowners for holding on to property and gives them the means to do so. All the government programs combined will not protect as much land as natural gas.

Why? Well, the answer is fairly simple: absent government buying the land, someone has to pay taxes on it and this demands an income, unless your last name is Rockefeller and you’ve already made it.

Vacant farmland in Sullivan County typically generates an annual real property tax bill of $6 to 8 per acre, meaning that just holding onto 150 acres of farm fields costs about $900 to $1,200 year in taxes before considering taxes on improvements, insurance and other operating costs or the opportunity costs involved, all of which can be considerable. Indeed, a 2008 Cornell study of 46 small dairy farms found they paid an average of $4,800 per year in real property taxes.

The same Cornell study found labor and management returns for these farmers were negative, and they earned nothing on their equity, indicating the old saying—“the quickest way for a farmer to become a millionaire is to start with $2 million”—is, sadly, all too true.

It is ever more difficult for our farmers to stay in farming, and unless they find additional ways to produce income from their farmland, it will inevitably disappear, despite whatever heroic efforts we make to save it with this or that program. Ag assessments, conservation easements and agricultural zoning don’t help when you still have to pay to farm.

Natural gas is the obvious answer, not only because it offers tremendous income potential but also due to its incredibly small footprint and compatibility with agriculture. The latest drilling plans for the Marcellus Shale provide for units as large as 1,280 acres (two square miles) with all wells for each unit being drilled on a single pad of less than five acres in size. Even after allowing for an access road of three-fourths mile in length to reach the pad, this amounts to total land disturbance of but eight acres, or six-tenths of one percent of the land.

Putting this in perspective, a typical home on a three-acre lot will, with driveway and lawn included, disturb a minimum of five to 10% of the land. A commercial or industrial enterprise will often cover more than 50%, and is seldom allowed less than that by zoning.

Nothing has so little impact on the land we treasure as a finished gas well. You can drive through the beautiful Finger Lakes and see them everywhere in the middle of cornfields and vineyards. If, like the people of that region, we’re serious about farmland and open space protection, we, too, need this source of additional income. Natural gas will save the farm. It’s that simple.

(Tom Shepstone is a consultant located in Honesdale, PA. He advises public and private clients on economic, land use and planning matters. He maintains a website at shepstone.net .)