MONTICELLO – The Delaware Highlands Conservancy, a land trust organization that works with willing landowners and communities to protect the natural heritage and quality of life of the Upper Delaware region, has drafted a set of guidelines reflecting its judgment toward gas drilling.

The hydrofracking issue now “complicates and compromises our efforts to achieve our mission: the protection of the lands, waters, and quality of life in the Upper Delaware region now and for future generations,” said Conservancy President Greg Belcamino.

“Our guidelines provide for an added level examination in our land protection decisions and we have decisions and we’ve decided we will contemplate accepting conservation easements, which is the primary way we do business, only for very large properties or properties with extraordinary conservation values where we can be assured that the gas drilling that may be permitted on or around those properties will not impact what we are trying to protect,” Belcamino said.

The guidelines include:

• The Conservancy will not enter into any lease for extraction of natural gas (including subsurface-extraction only leases) on any property owned by the Conservancy.
• The conservancy will not accept new conservation easements for properties for which a surface-disturbance gas lease is in effect or accept a new easement that would allow for the donor or a subsequent owner to sign a surface-disturbance lease.
• The Land Protection Committee may recommend that the board accept an easement for a property if an area for surface-disturbance has been subdivided into a separate parcel or otherwise excluded from the restrictions imposed by the easement.
• Upon recommendation by the Land Protection Committee, the Conservancy may accept new easements for properties already subject to subsurface-only extraction leases (or subject to compulsory pooling).