A map of Capital Region Water land around the DeHart, with the parcel proposed to be sold at right, in purple. Courtesy of Capital Region Water.
Before they support the sale of land in Clarks Valley, above the reservoir that supplies Harrisburg’s drinking water, the folks at Capital Region Water would like some assurances on exactly how well the land will be preserved.
That was the sense conveyed by some comments at the second of two public hearings on the proposed sale, which took place last night at the Dauphin County Agriculture and Natural Resources Center in Dauphin.
Under the proposed sale, the federal and state governments would partner to conserve the land in perpetuity while also generating short-term revenue for Capital Region Water, the city’s water and sewer authority.
The Department of Defense would put up about 75 percent of the $1.1 million project cost, through a federal program for creating permanent buffer zones around military installations.
Fort Indiantown Gap, a National Guard training facility neighboring the parcel, would apply for the funding, while the state Game Commission would ultimately take ownership of the land, a 383-acre parcel above the DeHart Reservoir.
The deed would include a restriction preventing development of the land, enforceable by the federal government, plus a promise to protect the watershed.
The Conservation Fund, a national environmental charity, would facilitate the transfer.
Tanya Dierolf, Capital Region Water’s sustainability manager, said during the presentation that the authority’s goals for any sale would be threefold: to protect the water, to generate revenue and to manage the authority’s natural resources.
Yet some of the most pointed questions after the presentation came from Capital Region Water officials, who challenged the notion that the commission would be a better steward than the authority.
David Nowotarski, the authority’s chief financial officer, at one point asked why the proposed deed restriction couldn’t contain a clause prohibiting drilling, referring to reports that the Game Commission had in recent years relied on drill leases for revenue.
The DeHart parcel, the purchase of which would link two existing tracts of state gaming lands, does not sit atop the Marcellus Shale, the rock formation tapped for natural gas in recent years with hydraulic fracturing and other drilling methods.
It does, however, sit above the Utica Shale, a formation a few thousand feet deeper than the Marcellus, a point Nowotarski raised after the meeting.
David Mitchell, the land management supervisor for the Game Commission’s southeast region, said the deed would contain language providing for watershed protection.
But Kyle Shenk, the Conservation Fund’s Pennsylvania representative, said the addition of language about drilling and mineral rights could affect the appraisal of the parcel, possibly reducing the amount Capital Region Water could get for it.
Specifically, if the parties were to insert language retaining Capital Region Water’s mineral rights and its right to enforce the restrictions, as Capital Region Water at one point requested, that would change the amount the Conservation Fund could pay for the parcel.
“Our appraiser would have to do a whole new report,” Shenk said.
Dan Galbraith, the authority’s superintendent at the DeHart Dam, also questioned whether the Game Commission would take better care of the land than the authority.
“Who’s a better steward than the owner?” Galbraith asked, adding the land could become a source of revenue in the form of timber sales.
Capital Region Water, formerly the Harrisburg Authority, did realize some revenues from timber sales in the past, but has stopped selling timber until it adopts a new forest management plan, according to Andrew Bliss, an authority spokesman.
Joshua First, introducing himself as a Harrisburg resident who owns 1,500 acres in Clarks Valley, said the deal had his full support.
The Game Commission “are spectacular, A-plus stewards,” said First, who said he hunts and traps on state gaming lands. “My question is, why are we doing only 383 acres? Why aren’t we doing the whole watershed?”
A vote to move forward with the agreement of sale is scheduled for Feb. 25. A board vote in favor will commence a 150-day due diligence period during which all parties can continue to review the proposed sale.
The authority has also commissioned a consulting engineer’s report from Herbert, Rowland and Grubic regarding the sale, which will review whether the transfer would materially affect bondholders as well as what forest management options are possible for the area, Bliss said.
Capital Region Water is asking for public input, which should be submitted at capitalregionwater.com by Feb. 18.
This story has been updated with clarifying information from the Conservation Fund about how proposed changes to a deed restriction would affect the land’s potential sale value.
