New rules took effect Tuesday, May 30th, 2023, where the oil and gas industry will be able to nominate parcels of land for potential drilling to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Oil & Gas Land Management Commission. Gov. Mike DeWine has said that his administration won't allow the oil and gas industry any new surface use – such as fracking rigs, roads, pipelines, or tanks – inside the boundaries of Ohio state parks while he’s in office. However, oil and gas companies could still extract fossil fuels underneath state land by setting up wells just outside the boundaries of state parks and drilling horizontally to extract oil and gas from underneath public lands. Fracking public lands has negative health consequences for the climate, environment and human health. Protecting public lands funded by the public should be top priority while limiting the extraction of dirty fossil fuels.
A screenshot of a map enclosed in documents, obtained in a public records request, Encino Energy submitted to the state of Ohio in an offer to buy leasing rights to drill for oil and gas under Salt Fork State Park. The blue circle shows a part of land being leased, right on the edge of Salt Fork State Park to go in horizontally under the land.
If the commission signs off on a drilling request, a lease agreement could be reached starting sometime after this October, ODNR Director Mary Mertz said in testimony earlier this month to an Ohio Senate committee. However, she added, state law allows a company to enter into a lease and not act on it for six years.
Applications to lease public lands by the oil and gas industry began on Tuesday May 30, 2023.
How to follow applications:
Sign up for the public distribution list that will inform recipients of application and timeline of 45 days for public comments. To sign up email Nathan Moffit, Commission.Clerk@oglmc.ohio.gov
Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission website. All applications for a drilling request will be populated on the page here.
Sierra Club will be generating future opportunities to take actions that include public comment and sharing the grassroots Save Ohio Parks social media actions and information hub. Follow Save Ohio Parks on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and look for their new website coming soon to http://saveohioparks.org
For more support, contact Shelly Corbin (shelly.corbin@sierraclub.org).