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The Administration opposes H.R. 2818. The bill would prohibit all oil and
gas drilling from under Mosquito Creek Lake in Trumbull County, Ohio,
notwithstanding mitigation measures that would be implemented and which the
Department of the Interior believes would ensure the environmental
integrity of this project.
The development of federal mineral resources may be appropriate where
mitigation measures can ensure the environmental integrity of federal
lands. Interior has determined that oil and gas resources located under
the lake can be developed through directional or "slant" drilling from
adjacent private lands on which oil and gas drilling is already taking
place. Interior has also determined that the surface and other subsurface
resources can be protected through various mitigation measures -- including
timing restrictions, baseline water quality testing requirements, setbacks
from special status species habitat, and noise abatement requirements --
that have been successfully implemented at similar Corps projects in
Illinois and Ohio. To ban all drilling from underneath the lake would
ignore the balance between environmental integrity and resource development
that can be achieved on this project.
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