NORWICH – On Monday, lawmakers took a position against a state act that would exempt county land from gas drilling while scientific research on birds is carried out.

At a meeting of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors, a resolution was unanimously adopted urging the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to resist proclaiming the county a “forest focus and grassland designation” within its well permitting guidelines that are due out later this summer. The designation would subject landowners and forest owners to a multi-year study by a professional biologist on the breeding success of birds prior to permitting drilling.

Because the state already owns 90,000 acres in Chenango County, or nearly 15 percent, the DEC’s research into the breeding success of birds could be carried out on their own property, without imposing undue hardship on farmers and forest landowners who may decide to drill for natural gas, said Peter C. Flanagan, D-Preston, and chairman of the county’s Natural Gas Advisory Committee that proposed the resolution.