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Saturday, 04 February 2012 06:00

We recently changed how we support our citizen advisory council. This is now handled by existing agency staff instead of a full-time director. This move did not change the role of the council in providing input on all aspects of DCNR's work.

Suggestions that this simple administrative change will reduce oversight of Marcellus Shale development are flatly false. In the past, the council has not concentrated on energy extraction issues -- but it is always welcome to do so. I hope that this change will spur more input from the council on all DCNR efforts.

Our second decision was to make sure that our grant programs do not direct scarce funds to scientific work already being done by DCNR or its partners. The Wild Resource Conservation Program was designed to provide grants from funds generated from public donations. Unfortunately, public support is insufficient for program administration. DCNR did its best to fill the gap by reallocating Environmental Stewardship Funds to augment the grants. However, these also are dwindling, which resulted in the grants awarded being decreased.

DCNR continues to study and monitor our state's natural resources. We invest more than $2.3 million annually in these efforts, including: field surveys for endangered and other species; ecological monitoring; water and soil monitoring; and social considerations such as public safety.

These efforts include many of the same projects that were supported by the grants.

Citizen review and the use of sound science are crucial to our decision making, and neither of these things will suffer from our efforts to better control spending. That is our mission, and that is our promise to the citizens of Pennsylvania.

RICHARD J. ALLAN
Secretary
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Harrisburg

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