The Bureau of Land Management auctioned off 1,147 acres of Wayne National Forest on Thursday, netting more than $5 million.
The 20 parcels in the Marietta unit of the Wayne, Ohio’s only national forest, were exclusively sold to oil and gas companies, an action that could lead to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The final sale netted $5,119,501.50. That money will be distributed between the Federal government and the state of Ohio, according to a BLM news release.
The oil and gas leases are valid for 10 years, wherein companies must submit a proposal to drill, which will require a further environmental assessment. The federal government will receive a 12.5 percent royalty of the value of production.
The BLM netted more than $1 million in their first sale Dec. 13, according to a previous Post report. The BLM makes sales of public land quarterly, and more parcels of the Wayne will likely be auctioned off in the future, Davida Carnahan, a BLM spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said in February.
