A draft management plan released by the George Washington National Forest in Virginia on Wednesday will limit the type of gas and oil drilling that could occur within its 1.1 million acres of territory while opening up segments of the forest to the potential for wind energy construction.
The plan would disallow horizontal drilling, a form of drilling typically using hydraulic fracking to reach deposits of natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing has become more and more controversial as increasing evidence has mounted against its unsafe use.
Half of the George Washington National Forest sits on top of the Marcellus shale natural gas formation, a natural gas deposit that ranges from the state of New York to the Virginias.
Fortunately, there is no drilling being undertake at the moment in the national forest, located in Virginia and West Virginia.
Wind energy would itself only be considered for development in areas not deemed "sensitive," according to the draft management plan.
The insistence by many to "drill, baby drill," is as obviously compulsive as it is dangerous to human beings and the surrounding ecosystems, which is why the national forest's draft management plan comes as such a great relief.
Until hydraulic fracking in particular can be done in a safe way, there is no sensible reason why it should continue.
The ultimate goal is an energy independent future for the U.S., but the U.S. will not have a future if it continues to search and rely upon nonrenewable sources of energy, the extraction of which does much more harm than good. |
