For the fifth time: No fracking Salt Fork!

Another unnamed oil and gas company has submitted a nomination to frack Salt Fork State Park — Ohio’s largest and most iconic state park with more than 20,000 acres in Guernsey County.

The nomination covers 2,300 acres of Salt Fork State Park and Salt Fork Wildlife Area. It comes three months after the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission awarded two nominations totaling 5,700 acres of Salt Fork to Infinity Natural Resources, but denied two other nominations.

Ohioans have until July 15 to file a public comment regarding the latest nomination to frack Salt Fork State Park and Salt Fork Wildlife Area. To comment, please visit the commission’s Comment Portal, and select Nomination #24-DNR-0004.

Ohio statute shield the names of nominating oil and gas companies to the public. The company name is revealed only after the nomination is approved and the company is awarded a bid.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources:

With thousands and thousands of acres of land and water, the park has something for every outdoor enthusiast. Boaters will appreciate the park’s two marinas and eight launch ramps; hikers will be challenged by a trail system that offers a variety of lengths and levels of difficulty; history buffs can visit the historic Kennedy Stone House; and golfers will enjoy the top-rated 18-hole golf course. Overnight accommodations include a full-service resort lodge, deluxe vacation cabins, and a large campground.

At Salt Fork State Park you can visit the iconic Hosak’s Cave, swim from the longest inland beach in Ohio on beautiful Salt Fork Lake, explore miles of hiking trails, campgrounds, horseback riding, and more. None of these activities are compatible with fracking!

Even if you sent in comments on the previous nominations, this is a new nomination, and you must comment separately. To comment, please visit the commission’s Comment Portal, select Nomination #24-DNR-0004, and file your comment before July 15.

You can draw from our sample letter below, but please personalize to explain why preserving Ohio’s state parks and public lands is important to you:

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To the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission:

I am writing to demand that you DENY lease nomination #24-DNR-0004, the fourth nomination to frack the Salt Fork State Park, Ohio’s largest state park and the crown jewel of our state park system.

This park is home to famous landmarks such as Hosak’s Cave, the Kennedy Stone House, and a 2,220-foot inland sand beach. Hundreds of thousands of people visit each year to hike, camp, boat, swim, birdwatch, even golf and ride horses, generating an annual revenue of $1.5 million.

All of that will be impacted and likely destroyed if you approve lease nomination #24-DNR-0004, allowing the oil and gas industry to frack 257 parcels of Salt Fork State Park and Salt Fork Wildlife Area.

This is the fourth nomination to frack Salt Fork. Fracking is incompatible with what people come to state parks for — clean air, clean water, peace and quiet, and closeness to nature and wildlife.

Eastern Ohio has long been a sacrifice zone to the fossil fuel industry. Coal, oil, and gas have been removed and pipelines have been shoved through. These poor communities don’t see the income from fossil fuel extraction, which goes to the already wealthy corporate owners. But they do see the desolation left behind. They deserve jobs of the future, not pollution of the past.

Effects of fracking at Salt Fork

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources: “Salt Fork State Park encompasses a stunning landscape featuring forested hills, open meadows, and misty valleys decorated with winding streams. With thousands and thousands of acres of land and water, the park has something for every outdoor enthusiast.”

Studies show air and water pollution caused by fracking, along with intense artificial lighting, noise, truck traffic and fracking infrastructure will negatively impact Salt Fork State Park and the surrounding area.

The company behind the latest nomination wants to install four well pads to frack 257 parcels – with major environmental, health, and social results.

Each frack well uses 4 million to 6 million gallons of fresh water – and each pad will hold multiple frack wells. This water will be mixed with sand and a variety of toxic chemicals that we are not allowed to know about, thanks to the “Halliburton loophole” – the fracking industry’s exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act and other environmental safety laws.

Where will all this water come from? The likely answer is Salt Fork’s beautiful Salt Fork Lake, or the streams that feed the lake, which provides almost 3,000 acres of swimming, boating, fishing, and a refuge for both wildlife and the people of Ohio who pay for and use this park.

Truck traffic – 2,300 to 4,000 truck trips per well – will bring in construction machinery, sand, toxic chemicals, and other equipment, as well as cart away the millions of gallons of toxic frack wastewater that can never enter the water cycle again and must be injected deep underground.

How will all this truck traffic get to and from these frack well pads? The main roadway to Salt Fork is U.S. Hwy 22, a curvy rural two-lane road that these trucks will have to share with cars and campers from the thousands of Ohioans who visit the park each day.

Statutory requirements

According to Ohio Revised Code 155.33, the commission MUST consider the following in deciding whether to approve or deny a lease to frack our public land:

Economic benefits:
A study by Ohio River Valley Institute shows that seven fracking counties in eastern Ohio lost jobs, people, and income, while an Ohio State University study shows that preserving our parks and public spaces adds $8.1 billion to our state economy each year. Clearly, preserving our state parks and public lands will generate much more income for the state as a whole than fracking our state’s most treasured natural resources.

Compatibility with current land uses:
Fracking is diametrically opposed to the mission of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which was founded in 1949 to develop and wisely use the “the natural resources of the state, to the end that the health, happiness and wholesome enjoyment of life of the people of Ohio may be encouraged.” Fracking is extremely loud – chasing away the wildlife who call the park home. Fracking injects millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that the public is not allowed to know about into the ground, and the wastewater that comes back up is radioactive. Frack pads are fully lit at night – destroying any ability to stargaze. Frack wells flare methane – polluting air all around including in the park.

Environmental impacts:
If fracking leases are approved, immense negative environmental impacts will occur on and under Ohio state parks and public lands. Not only will timber be cut, and plant, animal and insect habitats destroyed, those populations will diminish or die off. Surface water in rivers, lakes and streams will be poisoned by unregulated toxic chemicals used in fracking fluid. Physicians for Social Responsibility has documented that chemicals used by the oil and gas industry in Ohio since 2013 include PFAS, known as “forever chemicals.” Climate TRACE has found the Utica Shale already ranks 7th in the United States for methane emissions — at a time when we are facing record heat, wildfires, and floods. Fracking our state parks will only make this situation worse.

Adverse geological impacts:
Low-level earthquakes in the Appalachian Basin, which includes eastern Ohio, are caused by fracking, according to new research by Michael Brudzinski at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. While fracking wastewater is injected deep underground, water pressure can leak into faults in deeper, older rocks. This water can create more space between two sides of a fault, allowing the fault to slip. The more fracking water is injected, the larger the earthquakes could become, including recent 4 and 5 level earthquakes in Ohio and Oklahoma that have caused damage. Eastern Ohio in the Mahoning Valley has a history of low-level earthquakes related to fracking and its wastewater sites.

Impact on visitors:
Will Ohioans and tourists want to hike, bike, camp, fish, bird and swim in areas where the thump-thump of fracking rigs inundate the landscape at 70 decibels, 24 hours a day and drown out birdsong as well as conversation? Where a fracking rig accident means oil slicks on Ohio lakes and streams and fish and animal die-offs? Where hundreds of millions of tons of methane gas is released into the air, accelerating rising temperatures and global warming? Fracking will chase away Ohio visitors, not attract them. After all, who could relax, camp, picnic or swim with family and friends in the equivalent of an environmental hellscape?

Comments and objections from residents of the state and other users:
Public opinion surveys show that most Ohioans are either opposed or unsure about fracking. Baldwin Wallace University’s 2022 Ohio Pulse Poll and a 2019 poll from George Mason University and Climate Nexus show majorities (53.7% and 64%, respectively) of Ohio voters say they are either strongly opposed, somewhat opposed, or unsure about hydraulic fracturing as a means of increasing the production of natural gas in Ohio. These polls asked about fracking in general – even more oppose fracking in our state parks and public lands, which Ohioans were told are supposed to be protected.

We demand PROOF that there will be:

• NO environmental impact to the park
• NO adverse geological impact
• NO impact to visitors to the park
• NO impact to wildlife or plant species
• NO surface use, such as well pads, roads, pipelines, water lines, and compressors.
• NO use of any water from any nearby lakes or streams

The only way you can prove that these impacts will not happen is to DENY lease nomination #24-DNR-0004 to frack 257 parcels of Salt Fork State Park and Salt Fork Wildlife Area.

Ohio state parks and all Ohio public lands are paid for and owned by we, the people of Ohio – and we demand that you DENY the lease nominations in Salt Fork and all our state parks, forests, and wildlife areas.