Will the US Open a National Forest to Fracking?

The U.S. Forest Service is considering opening up the George Washington National Forest in Virginia to the oil and gas drilling process known as fracking, causing alarm over the potential destruction to the park as well as the contamination of drinking water for the millions of residents in Washington D.C. and surrounding areas, the Los Angeles Times reports Thursday.

An original draft plan for the forest preserve, released by the Forest Service in 2011, included a ban on fracking that spawned “an outcry from industry.” That outcry pushed the Forest Service to reconsider. A final decision on the ban has now been delayed several times as the industry has continued pressure on the agency.

However, as the Los Angeles Times reports, the potential risk has “drawn widespread opposition, including from most of the towns and counties nearby, members of Virginia’s congressional delegation and Washington’s mayor.”

In total, roughly about 4.5 million people depend on the water from the park and could potentially face contamination if proposals to open the park to “high-volume hydraulic fracturing” goes through.

“The Potomac is our exclusive water source. We don’t have anywhere else to go for our drinking water if there’s a mistake or problem,” said George Hawkins, general manager of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority. “And if there is, it would affect everyone at the [Environmental Protection Agency], every member of Congress.”

“One of the country’s most popular national forests is absolutely the wrong place for drilling and fracking,” states the Southern Environmental Law Center, which recently launched a campaign to protect the area from fracking.