Published: October 10, 2009 09:30 pm      

Proposed natural gas well reconsidered

GRAYLING -- Federal forest officials are again eyeing a plan for a natural gas well that environmental groups halted with a lawsuit.

Huron-Manistee National Forests officials will complete a court-ordered environmental impact statement for a proposed natural gas well near the Mason Tract, a remote state wilderness area along the South Branch of the Au Sable River in Crawford County, east of Grayling.

Savoy Energy, of Traverse City, leased mineral rights beneath the Mason Tract and in 2005 received a permit from the U.S. Forest Service to drill an exploratory well.

The idea troubled environmental advocates, who sued to stop the drilling.

"There are ways to extract those minerals outside the river corridor with directional drilling," said Lance Weyeneth, board member for conservation group Anglers of the Au Sable. "It should not harm the environment. It's a matter of conservation of a pristine, blue-ribbon trout stream."

A message seeking comment was left with Savoy.

Federal District Judge David Lawson in July 2008 ruled that a previous environmental assessment was inadequate and the Forest Service must complete a full environmental impact statement. The study will begin by year's end and will take up to 18 months to complete, said Ken Arbogast, Forest Service spokesman.

"It's a more intensive level of analysis," he said.

That's exactly what opposition groups wanted, including Anglers and the Michigan Sierra Club.

"It will help justify and spell very clearly that our objections to the exploratory well were based on scientific information," Weyeneth said.

The Anglers group had concerns about noise, spills, loss of old-growth forest and the well's proximity to wetlands near the Mason Tract, a 4,679-acre parcel donated to the state in 1954 under the condition it remain wilderness. The wellhead could be moved away from the river and still reach subterranean natural gas, Weyeneth said.

A more in-depth environmental study will offer more public comment opportunities, and complete court-ordered investigation into the well's economic impact and its effects on habitat for the endangered Kirtland's warbler songbird, Arbogast said.