Who’s defending Wayne?
2 groups have it in their care
National forest in Ohio, 244,000 acres, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, designated in 1934.
The defenders
Nobody has claimed this fight yet
No group in our directory carries Wayne in its work yet. That is not the same as nobody fighting: if you know the group that belongs here, tell us and our editors will look at it.
2 more groups also work this ground
The situation
What’s happening to Wayne
Ohio’s only national forest, 244,000 acres of reclaimed Appalachian hill country that took decades to grow back after strip mining and clear-cutting leveled it. Now the BLM wants to lease 41 parcels, about 2,795 acres, for fracking in a September 2026 sale. A federal judge already found in 2020 that the agencies broke the law here by failing to take a hard look at fracking’s impacts, calling their decision a faulty foundation. BLM is now moving forward on a Determination of NEPA Adequacy that leans on the same April 2025 Supplemental Environmental Analysis the Ohio Environmental Council says still ignores air quality and contamination risks to the Little Muskingum River. The public comment window closes June 17, 2026.
- 1934Established as national forest on reclaimed strip-mined land
- 2011First proposals to lease Wayne for oil and gas drilling
- 2016BLM auctions the first leases in the Marietta Unit
- 2020Federal judge rules BLM and Forest Service violated NEPA, calling the leasing decision a faulty foundation
- 2021Court remands the analysis and bars new drilling permits, surface disturbance, and water withdrawals
- 2025BLM signs a Supplemental Environmental Analysis to satisfy the court
- 2026BLM opens a 30-day comment period on the September 2026 lease sale
- 2026Public comment deadline
Source: Ohio Environmental Council · April 23, 2026
Source: BLM · April 1, 2025
No public comment window is open on Wayne right now. A call script is ready on the Public Lands Action Network, and the groups above are how the fight gets funded and argued in the meantime.
In the courts
The cases over this place
The dockets we track that name Wayne directly. Active first.
Your move
How to stand for Wayne
Wayne has defenders. It needs more.
The work is theirs. The backing is yours.