Fracking In and Around Ohio State Parks Raises Many Concerns (Part 1)

PART 1. Save Ohio Parks’ allies rally to fight against fracking

From the Article by Paul Becker, Martins Ferry Times Leader, July 5, 2023

LORE CITY, Ohio — Environmental agencies across Ohio rallied Saturday, July 1st, at Salt Fork State Park to protest fracking under Ohio state parks forests, wildlife areas and other public lands. Salt Fork is the first park on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources list to be fracked by natural gas and oil developers.

About 65 people from Save Ohio Parks, the Ohio Environmental Council, Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Council, Third Act, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Leave No Child Inside and Sierra Club Ohio picnicked and rallied against the new Ohio law that requires fracking under state parks and public lands.

Save Ohio Parks is a new nonprofit made up of volunteers from across the state. Speakers touched on fracking’s effects on animals, plants and soils; methane and toxic chemical effects on human health; and how fracking could impact Ohio state parks’ freshwater lakes, streams and creeks.

Randi Pokladnik, Ph.D., a research chemist and ecologist from Urichsville, said fracking Ohio’s state parks and public lands will destroy natural habitats, reduce native plants and animals and irretrievably alter the face of Ohio’s taxpayer-supported and protected natural places.

“The mixed mesophytic forests that make up Salt Fork State Park and many of the other state lands in southeast Ohio are second only to the Amazon rainforest for diversity,” she said. “Fracking on or near these lands will permanently alter the land and aquatic ecosystems and negatively affect the species which depend on them. Fracking is not compatible with a healthy forest ecosystem.”

An unnamed oil and gas company has applied to frack 281 parcels with 16 well pads surrounding Salt Fork’s 20,000-acre park at distances as close as 400 feet from park borders.

Well pads can sit on 5- to 10-acre plots of land clear cut of trees. The pads are paved with cement, with a fracking rig around 120 feet tall installed on the pad. Typically, 4 million to 10 million gallons of fresh water are taken from local lakes and streams for each fracked well. Eighty-nine wells will be fracked at Salt Fork alone, and each well will require multiple frackings.

Undisclosed combinations of chemicals, sand and water and used to fracture the shale layers and allow trapped gas and oil to travel to the surface, with fracking wastewater transported by trucks to injection wells for storage. The water is effectively taken out of the drinking supply forever. Millions of gallons of fresh water, if not billions, will come from Salt Fork and the streams that surround it.

According to reports by Columbus TV station WCMH, HB 507 took effect in April and was immediately challenged in court. On April 10, Franklin County Judge Kimberly Cocroft denied environmental groups’ request that she temporarily block the state’s enforcement of HB 507, which makes it easier for oil and gas companies to obtain a fracking lease for Ohio’s state park lands.

The lawsuit claimed state lawmakers “skirted constitutional requirements when considering HB 507.” Cocroft dismissed claims that expanded drilling could corrupt Ohio’s public land and those who enjoy it. “The Court finds that any reference regarding an injury to the recreational, cultural, and aesthetic interests in the lands to the plaintiffs’ members is speculative, at best, and does not constitute an immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage,” Cocroft wrote.

In December, Encino Energy of Texas, which acquired all of Chesapeake Energy’s holdings in Ohio in 2018, offered the state up to $2 billion in royalties and signing bonuses for the right to drill under Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County, according to records provided by the ODNR.

The company’s initial request was denied to allow the state’s Oil and Gas Land Management Commission time to finalize rules governing the administration of those leases. The process is now in place with an online portal available for applications.

See Part 2 tomorrow. To learn more, visit the Save Ohio Parks website at saveohioparks.org.

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NOTE ~ SOME 425 PARCELS IN SALT FORK STATE PARK ~ All in Guernsey County and a part of Salt Fork State Park. Identified Formation: Utica Shale, Point Pleasant Formation

Public Comments due by September 2, 2023. The title line of your email should read as follows: Public Comments on Nomination #: 23-DNR-0009.