In response to industry concerns that it is bottlenecking the rush to develop deep, extensive and potentially lucrative natural gas reserves in the Marcellus shales underlying most of Pennsylvania, the state Department of Environmental Protection is streamlining its permit process.

The new rules, which take effect in October, require a drilling company to submit a full water management plan with its permit application for gas wells that would tap the geologic formation that lies up to 8,000 feet beneath the surface.

According to Cathleen Curran Myers, DEP secretary for water management, the new requirements will allow state permit reviewers to concurrently evaluate water withdrawal, disposal and treatment plans for the deep wells, many of which employ new horizontal drilling and rock fracturing techniques that can use up to 5 million gallons.

"There has been considerable interest in developing the natural gas resources contained in the Marcellus shale -- interests that could yield a substantial economic boom for the commonwealth," Ms. Myers said. "This addendum to the permit application ... will reduce administrative delays for the drilling industry while helping us to determine what demands will be placed on our natural water resources."

The new DEP permitting requirements, written after meetings between the industry and regulators, apply only to those wells drilling into the Marcellus shales and bring the rest of the state into line with water use rules already enforced by the Susquehanna and Delaware river basin commissions for those watersheds.

In May and June, DEP inspections uncovered a number of water withdrawal, storage, treatment and disposal violations at Marcellus shale drilling operations.

Pennsylvania and other states in the northeastern Appalachians have seen a recent and substantial increase in drilling activity into the Marcellus shales which may contain up to 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, about 51 trillion cubic feet of which is recoverable using modern drilling technology. That's more than twice the amount used in the United States last year.

Geologists have known about the natural gas deposits in the 100-foot-thick Marcellus shales for 75 years, but because of their depth it hasn't made economic sense to go after them. That changed in the last year or so because of higher natural gas prices -- up to $13 per 1,000 cubic feet for a while before settling back at $8 -- and new drilling techniques.

The excitement about the Marcellus "play" has caused a big increase in land and mineral rights leasing, permit applications and drilling activity.

Drilling companies and land speculators are approaching private landowners and municipalities throughout Pennsylvania and offering previously unheard of prices to lease land for their big, deep well drill rigs, which require three- to four-acre drill pads.

In Washington and Greene counties, companies are paying up to $3,800 an acre to lease land where they can drill and offering royalties of up to 20 percent of the gas the wells will produce. Just a year ago they were leasing land for $20 to $50 an acre and royalties were 12.5 percent.