From the Environmental News Service. Michigan's ban on slant drilling under the Lakes should take precedence. Should, that is, if an "oil emergency" doesn't lead to some kind of federal override.
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is conducting a study on the environmental effects of gas and oil drilling in the Great Lakes. The information will be used by Congress to determine if the current drilling moratorium in the Great Lakes should be extended or not.
Congress required the study in the Energy and Water Appropriations Act of 2002. The same law established a moratorium on all federal and state permits and leases for gas and oil drilling in, or under the Great Lakes.
That moratorium was extended through Fiscal Year 2005 in the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2003.
The geologic formations under Eastern and Middle Lake Erie and those under Lakes Michigan and Huron have some gas and oil production potential that has been mined, the Corps says.
Some 2,200 vertical wells have been constructed in Lake Erie since 1913, all in Canada. Thirteen slant drilling wells have been constructed underneath Lake Michigan since 1979, all in Michigan.
There does not appear to be any oil or gas production potential under Southern Lake Michigan or under Lake Ontario in New York.