They want to drill our forest! The long, slender Finger Lakes National Forest is up for grabs for natural gas and oil exploration and development. The Resources Protection Act of 1974, which allows development of available mineral resources for the possible good of the country, means the Forest Service won't(?) or can't(?) consider not exploiting the more than 16,000 acres.

      A Draft Environmental Impact Statement, EIS, examining the environmental, social and economic effects of natural gas and oil exploration and drilling was released by the forest Service in early May. Anyone can walk into their office on State Route 414 in Hector and request the two inch . Then we all have until July 3 to offer comment.

      In the Draft EIS, the Forest Service proposes five possible approaches to making the natural gas and oil below our forest available. The first is leasing the entirety if the forest. Second is restricting land occupancy of the drilling operations to reduce the impact of public use, meaning no drilling around popularly used areas. Third is no surface occupancy - all natural gas would be accessed from adjacent lands. Fourth is no leasing, but the government would receive royalties from any gas extracted, again from adjacent lands. The fifth alternative proposal is drilling on the grazing lands, grasslands and shrublands. On the very first page of the draft EIS, page S-1, down on the bottom in dark ink, it says: "Based on impact analysis, the Forest Service and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) identified Alternative 2 as the preferred alternative in the daft EIS."

      A historian, poet friend once remarked that when Europeans arrived on the continent, a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River without touching the ground. The tree was immense and so dense their canopy of leaves and branches stretched all those miles.

      We don't have that anymore and I don't know is we even notice. We seem to live in virtual reality. We gossip about TV characters. We take vacations in fantasy theme parks. We sharpen and gauge our skill based on computer games.

      If the Forest Service gets its preference, we will be creating the latest virtual reality - the virtual forest. One half mile wide swathes of "forest" will bank the most trails and campgrounds. Forget the impact on local roads, the cost of repair and of constructing new roads. Forget noise pollution, compromised air quality, visual pollution, impact on water systems and wildlife and all the other considerations listed in the draft EIS. Consider our virtual forest.

      I want to live in the real world, not a virtual world. I want to be able to walk off of designated paths and explore and have sanctuary from the noise and dirt of virtual reality. Don't let them exploit our true wealth - the beginning regrowth of a natural, a real forest.

Donna Beckwith

Hector