The Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission on Monday approved an oil and gas lease under the state-owned Leesville Wildlife Area in Carroll County.
The agreement with Texas-based Grenadier Energy Partners III, LLC will allow fracking under more than 170 acres, and is the second drilling lease at the Leesville site, which is in southeast Ohio.
In exchange, the company will pay the state more than $1 million dollars, a royalty of 12.5-percent, and provide other incentives.
The commission approved 16 other parcels to go out for bid for fracking leases under Egypt Valley and Jockey Hollow Wildlife areas, the Noble Correctional Institution in Noble County, and other state property.
Starting in 2023, after a bill in the Ohio legislature required state agencies to expedite requests to drill under state-owned lands, the commission created a leasing process, which includes considering fracking proposals, and selecting bids at its quarterly meetings.
The commission does not allow the public to comment at its meetings, but it was required to hold a separate public hearing on Monday focused on a rule change mandated by the Ohio legislature to increase lease terms from three to five years.
“It is irresponsible to allow this to happen for three years; extending a lease to five years is unconscionable,” Linda New of the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club told the panel. She was one of more than twenty people who testified at the hearing against fracking in state-owned lands.
“Our natural areas should be revered and protected by government agencies and officials, not put at risk or sacrificed to maximize profits for oil and gas corporations,” she said.
The hearing was a technicality. The commission is required by law to adopt the extension, and did so last May. The state’s deal with Grendier at Leesville Wildlife Area will be the first with a five-year agreement.
