"The U.S. Bureau of Land Management scheduled a September 2026 lease sale for 2,800 acres of Wayne National Forest, a preserve long sought by the oil and gas industry. This could mean fracking Ohio’s only national forest for the first time."
"The federal government took a major step forward Friday toward opening more than 2,800 acres of Ohio’s only national forest to oil and gas development.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a lease sale scheduled for Sept. 15 of 41 parcels of land in the Wayne National Forest totaling 2,840 acres.
Although some bureaucratic hurdles remain, a lease sale brings fracking the forest for the first time – the subject of political effort since at least 2016 – far closer to fruition, giving specific companies legal rights to the land and minerals beneath it.
Wayne is unique in that it’s not one contiguous plot of land but more like three separate swaths around southeast Ohio. The leases for sale sit near Marietta, Ohio, and Parkersburg, West Virginia."
