Fracking of Appalachian Ohio is just more sickening plunder by outsiders

By Thomas Suddes

Dig, drill, saw or blast, then take the money and run back to Wall Street: That’s been Appalachian Ohio’s story. Result: Moonscapes where forests once towered; crystalline brooks and streams now muddy and stinking. These are the consequences of the dig, slash or burn economy that long pillaged Southeast and Southern Ohio.

Appalachia, particularly – a region legally defined as the crescent of eastern and southern counties reaching from Ashtabula (Jefferson) to Clermont (Batavia), in suburban Cincinnati – has been a story of grab-and-run by outsiders.

Then, in 1972, led by Democratic Gov. John J. Gilligan, the General Assembly created the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which was Gilligan’s No. 1 legislative priority that year.

The Ohio EPA bill’s prime sponsor was then-state Sen. Ralph S. Regula, a Navarre Republican, later a U.S. House member who represented the Canton area from 1973 through 2008. Statehouse bipartisanship: What a concept.

When Gilligan signed the 1972 bill, a history of the Ohio EPA later recalled, “Youngstown, Cleveland and Steubenville had some of the dirtiest air in the nation. Air [pollution] alerts were common. The state’s waterways were not faring much better: A spark from a cutting torch ignited an oil slick on the Cuyahoga River. [And] most garbage in Ohio was disposed in unlined dumpsites that were only minimally regulated.”

Since John Gilligan signed Ralph Regula’s bill, there’s been a Statehouse war between Ohioans who want to preserve (or restore) their state’s natural environment and, on the other side, resource-extracting companies – notably oil, gas and coal combines – whose idea of pretty scenery is an empty hole, a mountain of waste, and high-dollar cash transfers from Main Street, Ohio, to corporate accounts in Manhattan banks.

Coal’s heyday is past, but today’s Statehouse oil and gas lobby is not to be trifled with. During Republican then-Gov. John Kasich’s no-nonsense 2011-2018 administration, Kasich sought reasonable increases in the severance taxes that mineral companies pay on oil and gas, especially if gleaned via horizontal drilling. The industry’s lobbyists beat Kasich’s request like a rug on spring-cleaning day.

Sure, private property is private property, and some rural Ohioans glean cash royalty payments from oil-and-gas drilling on their land. It’s what Big Money cheerleader Ronald Reagan called “the magic of the market.” (He might actually have believed that.)

Whether because a governor has to pick his fights, or because of affinity for the oil-and-gas crowd, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration’s operating philosophy seems to be, if not exactly “Frack, Baby, Frack!” then, “get along to go along” — leasing to frackers access to the land under state parks, property that belongs to all Ohioans, not private landowners.

This rush-to-frack is enormously profitable for the drillers, even though they must pay (very) modest state royalties for the gas they siphon from under the parks. But the question is whether the risk of damaging unique properties that belong to all Ohioans is worth the royalties that frackers must pay.

Two General Assembly members, from Greater Cleveland and Columbus, emphatically say, “No.” Democratic Reps. Tristan Rader, of Lakewood, and Christine Cockley, of Columbus, are telling the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission they “oppose new permits for oil and gas development under the Egypt Valley Wildlife Area.”

The Egypt Valley tracts, 18,000-plus acres, are in Belmont (St. Clairsville) and Guernsey (Cambridge) counties, and include Piedmont Lake, managed by the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, and whose dam was built and is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Said Cockley, “Our parks and state wildlife areas are cherished by countless Ohioans, and opening these sites up to extraction and pollution is a step in the wrong direction.” Moreover, said Rader, “The practice of exploiting public lands and parks must stop.”

The two House members noted that the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission, the leasing agency, will accept until March 7 public comments on the proposed bid to exploit taxpayers’ Egypt Valley property – your property.

If you’re OK with an environmental threat to what should be your kids’ and grandkids’ inheritance as Ohioans, crack open another cold one and get comfy in the BarcaLounger. But if you think tomorrow’s Ohio needn’t be as bleak as today’s, there’s this thing called “email.” Send some.

This column originally ran in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on February 15, 2026. Thomas Suddes is a member of the editorial board who writes from Athens.