The University of Tennessee is renewing their plan to lease out 8,000 thousand acres of the university owned Cumberland Forest to GNX Gas Company for the drilling of oil and natural gas. UT says the project is to conduct research into possible hazards and ecological damage done by fracking, a process of injecting water into the earth to release gas and oil.
“We’re doing this from a research project focus. We are going to be good stewards of the land,” said the director of Forest Research & Education Center, Kevin Hoyt.
CNX Gas Company and UT previously reached a deal in 2009 where UT would receive no less than $2 million a year for drilling rights and there were no research initiatives at the time. Governor Bredesen had concerns that the effects of fracking would be detrimental to the environment so the plans were scrapped.
It is little wonder why many environmental groups doubt the motives of UT, in their second attempt to open up the land for drilling. “I am concerned about whether it’s just a repackage and whether there is a true interest in research,” said environmental attorney Anne Davis. “This is public land, and we understand it’s very important to the wildlife in the area.”
The land was donated to the university in 1930 by a local coal company and is already used in agricultural research. There is a huge responsibility whether or not the research done on the land is worth the potential damage it would cause.