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Cameron County

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Editor: It has been one week since I had the privilege of meeting the paddlers who arrived in Cameron County to take part in the annual Canoe and Kayak Classic.

I was proud to hand them our new brochure and information about the place we call home. I could not have spread the word about what we have to offer without the event that brought 126 people to the Driftwood Branch of the Sinnemahoning.

I want to publicly thank Randy Bailey and his committee for an amazing job. The comments I hear from businesses is that they were much busier than they expected to be and they credit the event for the increase in traffic into their stores, restaurants, gas stations and motels.

I hope that the success encourages more organizations to look around and invite others to come to Cameron County and participate in an event.

Let's continue to share the secret that we know -- Cameron County is a pristine place; not just is the nature pristine, but so are the people that call it home.

Tina Johns Lorson

Executive Director

Cameron County

Chamber of Commerce

Gas Drilling On State Forest Land

Editor:

During the past several years, we have worked with various stakeholders and advisory groups to formulate a policy that is responsive to Pennsylvania's energy demands while ensuring the sustainability of the state forest system.

Last week, we announced our revised policy and intent to lease 75,000 acres of state forest for natural gas development.

Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning fossil fuels available. Since 2002 the demand for natural gas in Pennsylvania has increased dramatically and prices have increased by more than 400 percent.

As a consequence, the demand for additional gas drilling on the state forest has risen drastically during that period. The entire state forest has been nominated for drilling by two companies and numerous areas have been nominated by as many as eight companies.

Bureau of Forestry will allow new shallow gas well leasing on state forest land because it believes that the environmental protection measures incorporated into the newly revised lease allow for sound forest management, while providing for new, economically viable opportunities for the oil and gas industry.

Part of the Bureau of Forestry's mission is to provide resources and values to society, one of which is the environmentally sound utilization of mineral resources. DCNR recognizes that many Pennsylvanians are deeply concerned about rising energy prices; reliable, domestic, clean energy sources; global climate change; and the range of concerns associated with energy independence.

DCNR believes that through thoughtful and careful utilization of the commonwealth's oil and gas reserves it can help to address these concerns while continuing to manage the forest sustainably.

Acreage that may be leased is in Forest Districts 12, 16, and 20, or in Lycoming, Sullivan and Tioga counties.

For more information, please go to dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry and click on the oil and gas article.

Jeanne M. Wambaugh

District Forester

Emporium

More On

Volunteering

To the editor: Having been at the forefront of virtual volunteer program development since 1998, your story about Virtual Volunteering (Endeavor, April 5) caught my attention.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of many notfor profit organizations' fund development work. Unfortunately, many nonprofit organizations are slow to embrace technology, even in times when they are experiencing great difficulty recruiting sufficient volunteer resources.

With the obvious need for non-profit organizations to have easy access to best practice resources about virtual volunteer program development (of which there are very few), we recently launched three one-of-a-kind resources: a blog, podcast and global directory.

After working with highlyskilled online volunteers from around the globe for the last 10 years, I am still amazed at the kindness of these strangers who contribute to an organization they will never see. Remarkably, some of our committed and talented online volunteers have been involved with us for as long as eight years.

Your readers should feel free to contact me via e-mail at RandyTyler@mys.ca.

Randy Tyler

Winnipeg, MB Canada

Old time movie planned April 17

The Austin Historical Society will present a movie April 17 at 7 pm at the E.O. Austin Home Historical Society and Museum. Public is invited. The movie is about life in a small town in the 1900s.

Warehousing class

An overview of the functions involved in managing and working in the current warehousing environment will be presented next week in Port Allegany. Training offered by Penn State Continuing Education will be offered at the Potter County Education Council Monday through Wednesday from 8:30 am to 5 pm. To register, call 642-2295 or 274-4877.