Environmental advocates in the region worry that the State Building Commission’s approval of the University of Tennessee’s request to seek natural gas drilling bids on UT property sets a bad precedent for publicly owned land.
If the UT school of forestry can shop hydraulic drilling, known as fracking, bids for its Cumberland Forest, perhaps the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation could seek drillers for areas of Fall Creek Falls or Cumberland Trail State Park.
Or maybe the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency could seek profits from wells on Aetna Mountain’s wildlife management area.
“To our knowledge, this will be the first time state land mineral rights have been leased, so, yeah, I think it probably does set a precedent, and that’s the reason we’re so concerned about it,” said Anne Davis, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
A review of UT records leading up to the state’s fracking decision last month shows the question of fracking public land in Tennessee is not new.