April 9, 2009

 The Wayne County Conservation District will no longer have any authority over Marcellus Shale drilling.

The county conservation district, which acts as a local environmental watchdog with regulatory powers, did have the ability to approve or deny an important waterway protection permit that is needed to drill for natural gas in Wayne County.

But a single memo from the state’s main drilling regulator, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), stripped that authority away from all 66 county conservation districts in two paragraphs, a move that stunned conservation districts throughout the Commonwealth, as there was zero communication about it, they say.

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