In what is sure to tick off anti-drillers, the Ohio-based Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) announced Friday it will seek a lease with Antero Resources to allow shale gas drilling under 7,600 acres of district-owned land at Seneca Lake. The Muskingum River Watershed covers more than 8,000 square miles and drains into the Muskingum River. It is the largest wholly contained watershed in the state of Ohio covering about 20 percent of the state. More recently, the MWCD has been in hot water with anti-drillers over selling what amounts to a thimble-full of their vast water supplies to drillers in Ohio that use it for fracking Utica Shale wells (see this MDN story).
So, just how much will the MWCD get for leasing the Seneca Lake land?
