But now a Bowling Green company says it plans to drill for gas inside the park in Pike County, and it appears park officials have no way to stop it.
Some board members are outraged.
All eight of them four from each state voted unanimously last month against the proposal, claiming the drilling would disturb views and hurt expansion plans for the park. A spokesman for Blue Flame Energy Corp. says the company will be a good steward of the land and that its wells will do little or nothing to mar views in the park. A 1988 constitutional amendment allows Kentucky landowners to protect themselves from strip mining by mineral owners, but not from oil and gas drillers. Carl Mullins, the park's superintendent, said he and others were shocked to learn the Breaks board did not own all of the mineral rights in the park. The deed included mineral rights to the coal beneath that land, but not to the oil and gas.