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County & City Say No to Gas Mining In National Forest
The U.S. Forest Service is updating the management plan that will guide land uses in the George Washington National Forest – 24 percent of the land in Rockingham County – for the next 15 years. The GW Forest includes drinking water sources for an estimated 52,635 residents in the the County and the City of Harrisonburg. The entire western portion of the forest in Rockingham County is underlain by Marcellus shale and, under traditional forest planning, could be open to natural gas mining using the hydraulic fracturing process that has been linked to serious water contamination in communities in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The Rockingham County Board of Supervisors and the Harrisonburg City Council directed their top administrators to write U.S. Forest Service officials before an October 5 workshop on forest planning alternatives. The letters ask forest officials for a ban (county) or a moratorium (city) on any hydraulic fracturing gas mining on the forest.
View the letter from Rockingham County (PDF)
View the letter from the City of Harrisonburg (PDF)
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