What is "Frackgate?" Inside Ohio's Hydraulic Fracturing Controversy.

Barkcamp State Park is one of the few places where visitors can experience the forests of Ohio as they existed before European settlement. Once the site of a historic logging camp, today it is a destination for camping, fishing and other outdoor recreation.

It's also a place that could see new pressure for oil and gas development if Ohio lawmakers approve lame legislation this month that would remove barriers to drilling under public lands.< /p>

Neither supporters nor critics have identified specific parks that could be of interest to the industry, but a planning document from a former governor's administration reveals at least three areas where oil and gas extraction gas could take place. They include Barkcamp, as well as Wolf Run State Park and Suncreek Fish State Forest.

This document — a strategic communications plan developed by members of the Kasich administration and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 2012 — sparked a political controversy known as Frackgate after it became public two years later. He also predicted the backlash that would be likely to follow any drilling proposal under state parks.

“Vocal opponents of this initiative will react emotionally, communicate aggressively with the media and online, and attempt to frame it as an unprecedented and risky state policy,” the communications plan reads.

For more than a decade, Ohio law has stated that an agency “may” lease land for oil and gas drilling. House Bill 507, which passed the Ohio Senate last week without any public testimony on its last-minute amendments, would change that to say the agency "shall 'lease the land' from good faith".

If the bill becomes law, “the state agency basically has to – has to – lease the land when the oil and gas company comes to the door and asks for the lease,” attorney Nathan Johnson said. , Director of Public Lands for the Ohio Environmental Council. In his view, the amendment would give free rein to oil and gas companies, with few safeguards for competing public interests or the environment.

The same legislation would also declare natural gas to be "green energy".

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A 2011 law created an Oil and Gas Leasing Commission and set out a framework for it to decide whether to grant drilling permits and enter into leases through an appeals process of offers. Lawmakers passed the bill, and Governor John Kasich signed it about a year before another law opened the state to fracking and large-scale horizontal drilling.

In the summer of 2012, members of the Kasich administration, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and others developed the strategic communications plan before eventually moving forward with drilling at Barkcamp, Wolf Run and Sunfish Creek. All three are located in counties that are among the top seven oil and gas producers in Ohio.

The communications plan was released in early 2014 and sparked an outcry from the Sierra Club, the Ohio Environmental Council, ProgressOhio and other groups. A few days later, Kasich said he had changed his stance on drilling on public state lands. A p...