Comments on BLM Environmental Assessment needed by November 15th!
Last week The Bureau of Land Management published its Environmental Assessment for the first Applications for Permits to Drill for public land in the Marietta Unit of Wayne National Forest since it began auctioning parcels off to gas and oil companies last December.
Eclipse Resources plans to drill under public land next to Witten Fork, a tributary to the Little Muskingum River, which was designated Superior High Quality Water in a 2014 OEPA Listing of Ohio's Special Waters, from a well pad on private land in Green Township.
We believe the EA is incomplete and inadequate. In the EA the BLM refers to Witten Fork as "impaired" due to runoff, based on an OEPA document from 2010 (four years before the one mentioned above). The BLM also fails to consider the impact on people who live nearby (especially those who are downstream), claiming "[t]he Proposed Action affects areas that are rural in nature with very few residential properties." Furthermore, this EA fails to acknowledge the global impact of climate change. We believe a full Environmental Impact Statement should be completed.
You can file your comments on the BLM's website. You can read the full Environmental Assessment here.
