Federal Plan Would Open Ohio’s Only National Forest to Fracking

Fossil fuel companies have targeted Ohio’s only national forest for years and in 2016 the corrupt BLM first attempted to auction off oil and gas leases in the Wayne. The new proposal, released in late March, is nearly identical to the fracking plan blocked in 2020 after conservation groups challenged it in federal court.

Fracking threatens the Wayne’s rivers, forests and endangered plants and animals ― the same things Congress intended to protect when it created the national forest in the 1930s. It also threatens the drinking water for millions of people. 

In 2017 the Center for Biological Diversity, Ohio Environmental Council, Heartwood and the Sierra Club sued the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service over their environmental assessment authorizing fracking in the Wayne. In March 2020 a federal judge ruled that the agencies had ignored fracking’s potential threats to endangered Indiana bats, the Little Muskingum River and the region’s air quality. The judge prohibited any leasing or fracking in the Wayne until the agencies conducted additional studies that considered these harms.

Despite the court order, the new proposal ignores how industrial-scale fracking will imperil the Wayne ecosystem. The BLM acknowledges that greenhouse gas emissions under the fracking plan would equal the emissions from 33,000 gas-powered vehicles. What they didn't recognize is that those emissions would be vastly more toxic than just car exhaust. 

The BLM is accepting public comments on the leasing plan through May 6 and will hold two public online meetings from 6 to 8 p.m. EST April 8 and 9. The Bureau and the Forest Service will then decide whether to allow new oil and gas leases in the Wayne National Forest. 

You can register for the online meeting and submit comments at https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2024234/530