Ohio State Parks are under attack, and right now our largest and one of our most iconic – Salt Fork State Park – is squarely in the crosshairs.

The oil and gas industry has submitted three applications, referred to as “lease nominations,” to surround the nearly 20,000-acre Salt Fork with 16 large well pads to FRACK an incredible 281 parcels under the park. Some well pads would be as close as 400 feet from the park border.

There is no way that this much fracking will not destroy the purpose of having a state park, which is to provide a refuge for wildlife and recreation for people to hike, camp, fish, hunt, boat, birdwatch, skywatch, and more.

TAKE ACTION: Enter your information in the form on the right to tell the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission to DENY lease nominations in Salt Fork State Park

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."

If the state approves these three nominations to frack Salt Fork, the oil and gas industry – we don’t know which company because state law shields that information from us, but we have an educated guess – will put 16 frack pads around the park, each pad 4 to 25 acres in size with drilling rigs up to 125 feet high.

Those rigs will use 4 million to 6 million gallons of fresh water per frack well – 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.

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.

TAKE ACTION: Enter your information in the form on the right to tell the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission to DENY lease nominations in Salt Fork State Park

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 Ohio citizens who pay for and use this park.

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.

Fracking is incompatible with visitor experience at Salt Fork or any state park:

• Fracking is extremely loud – chasing away the wildlife who call the park home.
• Fracking injects millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the ground – including PFAS – 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.

TAKE ACTION: Enter your information in the form on the right to tell the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission to DENY lease nominations in Salt Fork State Park

We must act now! The decision makers on the applications to frack Salt Fork State Park are the four members of the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission. They have the power to either approve or deny these nominations, and they are taking public comments now.

Please file a public comment to demanding 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

We have a suggested letter you can use to file a public comment, but you can personalize it to add your own story about why Ohio State Parks matter to you. When you press Send, your comment will go directly to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission.

Don’t delay – we are up against a powerful industry and need thousands of public comments. Please share this action alert with your friends! The deadline is July 20.

Thank you for caring about Ohio’s state parks and public lands.

Sincerely,

Cathy Cowan Becker
Roxanne Groff
Loraine McCosker
And the dozens of other volunteers with Save Ohio Parks

P.S. We will be holding a Rally to Save Salt Fork on Saturday, July 1, at noon, at Salt Fork State Park, Shelter 1, near Camp Beach, at Salt Fork, 14755 Cadiz Rd, Lore City, OH 43755. Sign up here

P.P.S. All of us working on the Save Ohio Parks campaign are volunteers, but we need funds to print flyers, make posters, rent event space, and other needs of a campaign. Want to help? Donate here.