Pennsylvania Hunting and Fracking Vie for State Lands

[RamboLiberal]

STATE GAME LAND 59, Pa. — For those who have ever stalked deer, turkey and bear here in “God’s Country” in north central Pennsylvania, this hunting season is like no other.

For one thing, it is louder. The soundtrack of birds chirping, thorns scraping against a hunter’s brush pants and twigs crunching underfoot is now accompanied by the dull roar of compressor stations and the chugging of big trucks up these hills.

The Marcellus Shale, a vast reserve of natural gas lies beneath some of this state’s most prized game lands. And now, more and more drills are piercing the hunting grounds. Nine wells have cropped up on this one game land of roughly 7,000 wooded acres in Potter County, and permits have been issued for 19 more.

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“Who wants to go into their deer stand in the predawn darkness and listen to a compressor station?” lamented Bob Volkmar, 63, an environmental scientist who went grouse hunting the other day through these noisy autumnal woods. “It kind of ruins the experience.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/us/pennsylvania-hunting-and-fracking-vie-for-state-lands.html?_r=1&hp

[grntuscarora]

1. Could someone explain

how mineral rights work?

"Although the agency owns 1.4 million acres of game lands, it does not always own the mineral rights beneath them, so their private owners can lease them out to the gas companies — the case with Game Land 59."

I don't understand how the state can own the land, while someone else owns the mineral rights underneath that land. Confusing.