THE FIGHT TO END LAND LEASING AT WAYNE By Alejandro Figueroa Staff Writer
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hio’s only national forest is at the center of a heated debate, garnering the attention of national and hyper-local environmental conservation and anti-fracking groups. At the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Wayne National Forest sits on 833,900 acres across 12 Ohio counties, including Athens County. The land has historically been exploited for its rich natural resources like coal, iron minerals and now, natural gas. Under two 20th-century acts — the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 and the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 — Wayne is legally permitted to lease parcels of land for extracting minerals for a defined period of time through a competitive bidding process. The purpose of such sales is so citizens can benefit from mineral holdings and to encourage nonrenewable, domestic energy development, including hydraulic fracturing, a controversial method for extracting natural gas or oil from deep shale rock formations using highly pressured water, said Kel11
ly Miller, Wayne public affairs specialist. Land leasing was dormant for decades until in 2011, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service announced 3,000 acres of land were being auctioned off at Wayne. Following the announcement, members of environmental conservation organizations cited numerous concerns about how BLM executed the land leases. They claimed that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by approving oil and gas leases without addressing risks to watersheds, public health and climate pollution. NEPA is a 1970 act that requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of proposed actions prior to making decisions regarding oil or gas extraction. “It’s problematic in our view to see federal agencies leasing out land for fracking development over parts of Wayne,” said Taylor McKinnon, senior public lands campaigner for the Center of Biological Diversity (CBD). “It will completely and forever change the character of that place.” The CBD is an environmental pro-
Summer Magazine III, August 2019