A steep decline in timber harvests in the Allegheny National Forest may be giving the U.S. Forest Service time to focus more attention on the oil and gas exploration boom.

Timber harvests over the past year are well below average, while many companies with subsurface mineral rights in the forests are drilling oil and gas wells virtually as fast as they can obtain permits.

The sharp rise in the price of a barrel of crude oil is spawning the increase in wells in one of Pennsylvania long-time “oil patches” in the forest.

When the national forest was created in the 1920s, the acreage acquired by the federal government did not include subsurface mineral rights.

For years, companies such as Quaker State and Pennzoil drilled and pumped oil from wells on leases within the national forest. These two large companies have moved operations elsewhere, but several smaller firms have taken over the oil leases and are flourishing.

The oil and gas industry is considered one of the largest employers in the Kane area. In addition to drilling for oil and gas, the lease-holding companies contract with many other firms to build roads and provide other services.

Under terms of their leases, the oil companies reportedly have the authority to construct access roads to wells drilled in the forest.

Because of the increase in drilling activity, the Forest Service appears to be directing more and more attention to details involving wells, access roads and the use of equipment on its own roads in the 513,000-acre forest.

Earlier this month, a rift developed between the Forest Service and the Duhring Resource Company of Sheffield over the use of forest roads.

The Forest Service claims the company failed to pay for “commercial” road permits to use four forest roads on both sides of Route 948 near Cherry Run in Sheffield Township, Warren County.

“As a result of failure to pay a commercial road use permit for the commercial use of these roads on national forest system lands, all commercial use of these roads by Duhring Resource Company employees and their associated contractors must cease until the commercial road use permit is paid in full,” Bradford District Ranger Anthony Scardina said in a Feb. 8 letter to Duhring.

That same day Forest Service law enforcement personnel reportedly showed up at well sites to advise certain workers to cease their activities.

“They showed up with guns and badges and kicked us off our property,” Steven Tachoir, Duhring Resource president, said.

According to Arthur Stewart, a Warren attorney who is vice president of Duhring, the dispute between the Forest Service and Duhring involves the amount of the payment for the permit.

Stewart claims his company should only pay about $10,000 for the permit. He said the Forest Service used “a wrong calculation” in billing the company $14,092.70 for the permit.

Duhring has since paid the full permit fee  “under protest” and has returned to its well sites to avoid what the company claims would be a “financial loss from delayed oil and gas sales.”

Duhring operates more than 100 wells within the national forest, Stewart said.

It also has been learned that Duhring last November filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service over an unrelated dispute.

Officials at Duhring wonder why the Forest Service sent law enforcement officers to the site to stop vehicles entering the well sites via Forest Road 148 at Cherry Run.

“We’re not doing anything illegal,” Stewart said.

The construction of roads to access oil and well locations also is drawing the attention of the Allegheny Defense Project (ADP), which in the past has challenged certain logging operations in the forest.

The ADP claims a Forest Service plan to expand eight stone pits within the forest is “almost exclusively for the oil and gas industry.”

“It becomes clear that the proposal is overwhelmingly for private road development to facilitate oil and gas drilling,” Megan Rulli, ADP outreach coordinator, said.

“Our public land is not a disposable resource for private oil and gas operations,” said Bill Belitskus, president of the ADP board. Belitskus, who resides near Lantz Corners, said the “forest plan” directs the Forest Service to “ensure the protection of surface resources from the impacts of oil and gas drilling.”

The Kane-based Allegheny Forest Alliance (AFA), which supports increased timber sales in the national forest, last year supported the oil and gas industry when it challenged the new “forest plan.”

Jack Hedlund of Kane, the executive director of the AFA, said last year that the oil and gas industry “stands to lose the most” under the new forest plan. He said the AFA is concerned because the oil and gas industry is “part of our culture” and provides “jobs and income” for the Kane area.

In its challenge, the AFA said the plans fails to recognize the holders of mineral rights by “expanding the authority of new standards and guidelines” for oil and gas drilling in the ANF without giving the “subsurface” owners an “opportunity to comment.”