Company drops Mason Tract gas drilling

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - A Traverse City company is abandoning a nearly decade-long effort to extract natural gas in an environmentally sensitive area of Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.

The U.S. Forest Service reported this week that Savoy Energy LP recently informed federal agencies it was withdrawing an application to drill below a site called the Mason Tract in Crawford County. The Mason Tract is a 4,700-acre wilderness area near the south branch of the Au Sable River.

Savoy wanted to drill an exploratory well using slant drilling techniques from nearby land in national forests. Environmental groups fought the plan in court. A judge ordered a complete environmental impact study in 2009, which has not been completed.

Sierra Club ecologist Marvin Roberson told the Traverse City Record-Eagle he was pleased with the company's decision.