The acreages that make up the Wayne National Forest in Southeastern Ohio are a patchwork of land parcels which lie in 12 Ohio counties. In the 1800s, the region was heavily logged to supply wood for 46 charcoal furnaces used for iron smelting. Farming also damaged the landscape as the remaining areas were cleared for agriculture, causing destructive soil erosion. Nature, time and help from the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s helped restore the second-growth forests we see today. Sadly, the oil and gas industry is seeking to frack parcels within the wooded areas, possibly destroying the vibrant mesophytic ecosystem that has evolved during the last nearly 100 years.

The Bureau of Land Management will be accepting oil and gas leasing applications in September for 41 oil and gas parcels, totaling 2,795 acres. These parcels of the Wayne are located in Monroe and Washington counties. Currently, they are seeking public input (written comments) pertaining to the lease sale. These comments are due on Thursday and can be submitted through the Bureau of Land Management site.

More than 85 percent of Ohio forests are privately owned, making the Wayne National Forest very important for Ohio residents and non-residents.

This forest remains a sanctuary for people who need an escape from their hectic lives. Visitors find peaceful settings, as well as spaces for recreating, bird watching and fishing in the natural environment provided by the Wayne. There are hundreds of miles of hiking trails, horse riding trails, mountain biking trails and off-road vehicle trails. More than a quarter million visitors find their way to the Wayne every year.

The Little Muskingum River flows through the middle of the Marietta Unit of the forest. It “has an exceptional warmwater quality designation” and species like the rare river otter and the state endangered Ohio lamprey make their homes in the river. Additionally, the Wayne is critical habitat for the eastern hellbender salamander, a species which has been proposed for listing as an endangered species.

When speaking of fracking in Ohio’s state parks in 2024, then-state Rep. Don Jones said, “You will never know where fracking has occurred.”

I strongly disagree. I live in Harrison County, one of the most fracked areas of Southeastern Ohio. Well pads and fracking infrastructure have taken over the rural landscape. Examining areas around the towns of Scio, Cadiz and Jewett through a satellite image with Google Maps reveals over 179 well pads in the county. These appear like small white squares on the Google landscape map, but if you zoom in on these pads, you will see some of the infrastructure associated with fracking: Large storage containers, wells, compressors, roads and often the outline of pipelines crossing through the areas. These well pads are not reclaimed because many times wells are often refracked. What was once a region of rural beauty has become an industrial zone, as fracking eats away at the wooded hills like metastatic cancer.

Fracking significantly impacts forests, as land is altered for well pads, roads, pipelines and other infrastructure. Research shows that up to 19 acres per well pad is needed for gathering lines. In addition to gathering pipelines, there are transition pipelines and distribution pipelines, as well as roads to the well pads. The construction of this infrastructure results in clearcutting of the forested area, which leaves gaps in the forest canopy. Think of it as death by a thousand cuts.

The Halliburton loophole legislation of 2005 exempted natural gas drilling from most federal regulations created to protect human health and the environment.

Companies are exempt from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing, but an EPA assessment reported there were at least 1,606 chemicals used in fracking that could impact drinking water. Leaks, spills and runoff from operations threaten groundwater and surface water quality, impacting aquatic ecosystems.

Billions of gallons of radioactive waste brine are generated by the industry. This brine, although toxic in nature, is exempt from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Every day brine tankers travel through fracked communities to deliver the toxic brew to Class II injection wells. Fracking the Wayne, especially in the Washington County region, could mean more Class II wells for an area already dealing with well contamination issues from brine infiltration into production wells.

The process of high-pressure hydraulic fracking requires between 1.5 million and 16 million gallons of water per well. In Ohio, a facility is allowed to withdraw surface water in the amount of “up to 2 million gallons per day in any 30-day period without first obtaining a permit from the chief of the division of water resources under section 1521.29 of the Revised Code.”

Ohio saw record droughts in the summers of 2024 and 2025. Counties where fracking is ongoing experienced extreme and exceptional droughts in 2024. Withdrawing water from streams decreases volume, increases pollution concentrations, increases water temperatures, decreases dissolved oxygen and affects the pH, making streams less habitable for aquatic organisms. Surface water will no doubt be withdrawn from the local streams in the Wayne National Forest.

Fracking creates air pollution that can seriously impact wildlife. A Colorado study revealed that exposure to air pollution from fracking could cause neurological problems, respiratory diseases and cancer in wild animals. Some of the compounds released during fracking include benzene, a known carcinogen, as well as xylenes and nitrogen oxides. Studies show these compounds can cause cancers, particularly if exposure occurs within a 0.5-mile radius of a well pad.

There are additional issues that will impact the rural area that makes up the Wayne National Forest. “The hydraulic fracturing process requires 2,300 to 4,000 truck trips per well. Many of the roads in rural areas are not built to withstand the amount and weight of these trucks and additional traffic has resulted in an increase in vehicular accidents. Anthropogenic noise from fracking reduces habitat quality and interferes with communication for species that rely on acoustic communication. The bright lights on the drilling rigs and pads can significantly impact birds, especially during migration. A 2020 study shows “shale oil and gas production reduces subsequent bird population counts by 15 percent, even after adjusting for location and year fixed effects, weather, counting effort, and anthropic land-use changes.”

Ohio’s Republican Legislature and Gov. Mike DeWine sacrificed our state parks to fracking during a lame duck session in 2022. Without any public comment period, our parks were opened up for fracking.

Now, our only national forest and the rural communities surrounding it will become a new sacrificial zone.

The BLM says on its page, “The preliminary parcel list is not subject to protests or appeals.” Does this mean Ohio’s citizens have no recourse? At the very least, we need to let our concerns be known to the Bureau of Land Management. Allowing our natural resources in Southeast Ohio to be exploited to supply power for data centers or to be exported out of the country is not ecologically or economically sustainable for our region.

(Pokladnik, a resident of Uhrichsville who holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies, is a board member of the Ohio Valley Environmental Advocates)