NORWICH – The chairman of Chenango County’s Natural Gas Advisory Committee said Monday he would be happy if he never heard another word about gas.

Preston Supervisor Peter C. Flanagan made the comment after updating the county board on his presentation last week to members of a panel charged with determining how much it will cost for state and local governments to oversee development of thousands of natural gas wells, and how that money can be raised. He said state officials and panel members appeared confused when asked questions regarding the law on taxation and mineral rights specifications if Albany were to drill on state forest land.

“They have a steep learning curve up there,” Flanagan said, referring to Albany’s panel. “Hopefully, we can follow up with some concrete proposals of how they think this is going to affect us. But, I’m not extremely optimistic about this.”

There are between 75,000 and 94,000 acres of state land in Chenango County. The county’s advisory committee recently debated the pros and cons of how towns with heavy forestation would be affected if the state decided to lease its own land for drilling. Towns such as Pharsalia (which is half state land) and German could lose their school ad valorem tax if the state excluded them from their wells’ spacing units.