Федеральное правительство планирует провести аукцион за 2840 гектаров леса Уэйн в Огайо для добычи нефти и газа

Selling Out the Wayne: Why Fracking Ohio’s Only National Forest is a Tragic Mistake Have you been through the Wayne National Forest? It’s the only National Forest in the State of Ohio, and it’s right here in our own backyard. Beautiful forest views and wildlife and just steps from our own backyards. My wife and I have enjoyed it for years. Often we’ll fill a cooler, take some snacks and head to the backroads of the Wayne. The streams, the trails, and the often sight of rare wildlife keeps us going back. Recently we were disheartened by the news that they would soon be auctioning off thousands of acres for oil and gas leasing, ultimately leading to drilling and other destruction of its beauty. We became sick to our stomachs when we heard the report. The federal government is currently preparing to auction off 2,840 acres of Ohio’s Wayne National Forest for oil and gas leasing. This upcoming sale, scheduled for September 15, 2026, encompasses 41 distinct parcels within the forest’s Marietta Unit. While proponents view this as a routine bureaucratic procedure to unleash domestic energy, it actually represents a dangerous precedent. This auction serves as the opening of a broader, deeply troubling federal blueprint that could eventually expose up to 40,000 acres of this public treasure to horizontal hydraulic fracturing. Allowing high-volume fracking inside Ohio’s only national forest is a short-sighted compromise. It prioritizes immediate corporate profits over long-term environmental health, public safety, and the preservation of biodiversity. The primary argument advanced by industry advocates centers on economic necessity. Proponents frequently claim that tapping into the lucrative Utica and Marcellus shale formations beneath southeastern Ohio will inject billions of dollars into local economies, create jobs, and lower regional energy costs. They argue that because fracking occurs deep underground, the surface impacts on the forest will be minimal. However, this economic narrative relies on a fundamentally flawed premise: that the value of a forest is measured only by the resources extracted from it. Wayne National Forest provides invaluable ecosystem services, pristine wildlife habitats, and a sanctuary for outdoor recreation covering 250,000 acres across three separate units in southeast Ohio near Marietta, Athens, and Ironton. The forest has 400+ miles of hiking, horse, and ATV trails. Paddling on the Little Muskingum River and other streams. Camping, hunting, fishing, and draws 250,000 visitors a year. It is part of a watershed providing clean drinking water for millions from the Little Muskingum River and Ohio River tributaries. The forest is home to federally endangered species like the Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, plus fanshell, pink mucket pearly mussel, sheepnose mussel, snuffbox mussel, plus mature white oak & shagbark hickory trees that are critical bat roosting habitats. Scenic views, non-timber forest products, rural lifeways.These benefits sustain local tourism and support community well-being in ways that cannot be quantified on a corporate balance sheet. Furthermore, the physical reality of modern fracking completely invalidates the myth of “low-impact” subsurface drilling. A fracking operation is not an invisible phantom existing solely thousands of feet below the earth. It requires massive, highly disruptive industrial infrastructure on the surface. To facilitate drilling, operators must clear-cut trees, flatten land for multi-acre drill pads, construct massive waste pits, and carve heavy-duty access roads through once-unbroken forest canopies. This severe habitat fragmentation directly threatens vulnerable wildlife species that depend on deep, contiguous forest interiors to survive and reproduce. The peaceful silence of a national forest will be replaced by the relentless, 24-hour roar of diesel generators, heavy construction machinery, and fleets of semi-trucks hauling toxic chemicals down quiet rural roads. The Wayne has been in recovery since the 1930s to restore land stripped by logging, coal, and oil. It’s been healing for decades, but BLM’s own estimates say the proposed fracking could cancel out the entire forest’s carbon sequestration for 30 years Even more alarming is the immediate threat that fracking poses to the region’s watersheds. The 41 parcels currently targeted for leasing sit squarely within Washington and Monroe counties, directly adjacent to vital water systems like the Little Muskingum River. High-volume hydraulic fracturing requires millions of gallons of fresh water per well–water that will be permanently withdrawn from local streams and aquifers, depleting critical aquatic habitats. Once mixed with chemical additives and blasted underground, this water returns to the surface as highly toxic, radioactive flowback fluid. The risk of surface spills, pipeline ruptures, and structural well-casing failures is a documented reality in shale country. A single industrial accident near the Little Muskingum River could easily contaminate the public drinking water supplies that thousands of local residents rely upon. Moreover, the Bureau of Land Management’s handling of this process reveals a troubling desire to suppress public dissent. The agency opened a formal 30-day protest window, which closed on August 17, 2026, and, in an era dominated by digital communication, the BLM explicitly required that all formal protests be submitted as physical, hand-delivered, or mailed hard copies. This outdated requirement created an intentional barrier to civic participation, making it as difficult as possible for everyday citizens to voice their opposition to the exploitation of their own public lands. Wayne National Forest is not an industrial zone; it is a shared public trust. It belongs to the citizens of Ohio and the American public, not to the highest bidding energy conglomerates. Turning these public lands over to private oil and gas interests sets a terrible precedent for federal land management nationwide. The Wayne’s main features are its public recreation, clean headwater streams, recovering hardwood forest, and endangered bat habitat. Leasing would bring roads, pads, pipelines, truck traffic, air emissions, and spill risk into those areas. Courts have twice said the agencies “demonstrated a disregard for the different types of impacts caused by fracking in the Forest” and blocked it pending better review. The Sept 2026 lease sale is the latest flashpoint. For folks in Wetzel and Tyler counties, the Marietta Unit parcels are just across the Ohio River, about 45 min away. So air, water, and recreational impacts would be regional. Citizens should demand that the federal government halt this auction, reject the 40,000-acre leasing blueprint, and honor its fundamental duty to protect, preserve, and defend our public lands for generations to come.