Campfire Chronicles #21 | GUEST Podcast | Becca Pollard from Keep Wayne Wild

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Andrew chats with Becca, a founding member of Keep Wayne Wild. We discuss fracking, its potential effects on Wayne National Forest, and the perspectives of the community members living in and around the forest.

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Tags: bushcraft,backpacking,hiking,camping,wilderness,survival,outdoors,travel,outdoor recreation,prepping,nature,4k,wild,survival skills,ray mears,les stroud

Video Transcription

welcome to campfire chronicles episode 21 this is andrew speaking and today we have a little something different basically I wanted to start having guests onto the podcast because I figured after like 20 episodes you all might get a little bit sick of hearing the four of us ramble on about whatever and maybe you don't but either way I'm hoping to start having guests occasionally on our podcasts just to change things up and to hear different perspectives of people who enjoy nature or relate to to the wilderness somehow so today we have Becca Pollard who is a founding member of keep Wayne wild which is an organization in Ohio that's concerned with how natural gas extraction might affect the environment in weig National Forest and I mean I think this is something that a lot of us can relate to as outdoors enthusiasts and backpackers and whatever we may be because you don't want to go to a forest and find that like biodiversity has decreased or that the environment has been wrecked or that the waters not clean anymore so yeah I hope you enjoy this conversation and hopefully we can have more guests on with more interesting stories and perspectives before we get into it remember to check out our patreon page at patreon.com slash adventure you can sign up and support our channel join a community where we're posting lots of weekly live streams weekly updates you get early access to all the episodes and behind-the-scenes content like bloopers and commentary for all the episodes so yeah sign up there thank you for listening and without further ado here's the conversation so yeah I guess I'm curious like how you got into keep playing wild to begin with well I grew up in central Ohio and I actually never went to the way national course growing up I did visit other hiking areas other natural areas around the state including some in southeastern Ohio like Hocking Hills obviously but I didn't even know we had national forests growing up here for sure but in 2004 I moved to Oregon and I lived out there for 12 years and there are a lot of really amazing forest feel like there feel like a lot of people would be jealous yeah yeah so I guess that kind of just kind of opened my eyes to the value of living near old-growth forests like you know expansive healthy forests where there's a lot of recreation areas and a lot of wildlife and you know places where you can hike for a long time without seeing a road or you know hearing traffic or bringing around industry so I think that helped me to really gain an appreciation for what National Forest can be like and then I moved back here a little over a year ago and right when I moved back I heard the announcement that the Bureau of Land Management was planning to auction off way National Forest for a gas and oil develop

and specifically for unconventional fracking because they've been they've been doing vertical drilling in ever doing for some time yeah which is much more invasive and takes a lot more resources so I was pretty concerned when I heard about that and so I mean the first thing I did was I just drove down there and took a height that was just like I want to go see what this place is about and I was like you know this you hadn't been down there before no I had I'd been kind of to that area but I hadn't been in the wind before and so I just kind of went down and I was like yeah this is pretty and it's a natural area and there's not very much of this around here and we should really protect what we've got so I went to an informational meeting here in Columbus it was maybe last January and through that meeting I got in touch with some other local people who were really concerned about the same issue and we started keeping wild that's awesome okay so the group is like about a year old now yeah like I think we some people are already like doing some like petitioning and things before then but we kind of formally became a group and started a website and all that stuff in February of last year last week well before we get into all that I'm curious if you like deep I mean when you were in Oregon did you do any like backpacking or camping yeah quite a bit and they have it they're like I think 11 national forests in Oregon and so I visited a lot of them and also some in Washington Gifford Pinchot National Forest and southern Washington is probably my favorite I went backpacking there quite a few times so we're like the like the rainforest and stuff are there's a lot of subtropical rainforest in that area and I I think most of them in that region like the Western Washington Oregon area are technically rain forests like they're you know they're like really big trees and lots of ferns I knew someone who lived out in like the cave junction area I don't know if you're familiar with that but I don't think so forget where exactly it is but they were a park ranger in that area for a while did a lot of caving yeah yeah there are a lot of caves especially in Washington like in de Gifford Pinchot area like that's the same area where Mount st. Helens is yeah I think there's there's a big part called ape caves there that's pretty popular but they're also a lot of lesser known caves that people like to go explore so yeah I don't know I guess getting back on the whole frakking thing like you said you grew up in Ohio was it in these sort of Appalachian areas where there's a lot of business have no I grew up in central Ohio so I wasn't too familiar with that area I mean I had been down to Hocking Hills and some of their places and southern Ohio but I had never spent a ton of time and I've watch in Ohio before I've been to other parts of Appalachian my mom's originally from North Carolina so we went down to that area so husband like participating in the group has that made you sort of I don't know gained an underserved gained familiar with the communities that are dealing with this from day to day like what are their opinions I guess because I feel like there's it's really mixed yeah um we do have chapters of keep Wayne Wilde in Marietta and Athens and we've got a small group of folks in Monroe County which is the county where the majority of the parcel of the national forests that are being leased are and you know which because there's like three chunks of Wayne yeah so it's the Marietta unit that is currently being leased a private airplane managed man there are other threats being posed to the other parts as well like the iron comunit and ridiculous or something to watch out for is the Buckeye Express pipeline which I believe is currently in the process of getting permitted by FERC so that's something we're keeping an eye on but the fracking leases are happening in the Marietta unit which is along the Ohio River right by West Virginia okay so I guess I mean when when this fracking happens like hasn't it already happened or are they still single there's a lot of fracking happening in the area and it's kind of a complex issue because the way National Forest is a patchwork of public and private land so there's a lot of privately owned land that has already been tracked inside of that boundary so the public land is being leased a little bit at a time there are currently 60,000 acres that are part of what they've been considering for lease they've certainly stood about 2000 acres so far there's another auction coming up on the 22nd of March for another I think 300 or so acres

but so far no fracking has happened under the public land but under resin like even if it's yeah so the the pads as far as I know this is what I've been told and it is the pads are all going to be on private land okay we don't know this for sure but this is at least what the messaging has been but they drill under the public land because basically it's like the mineral rights that are being auctioned off I can't did I answer your question I can't no yeah totally and I'm also kind of curious if like I mean it sounds like they do this but when when they are trying to buy land to do fracking on the forests like it seems like they try to avoid places that would be more in the public eye like I mean is that accurate or yeah I think that is accurate I think you know they kind of treats that area like a sacrifice zone you know and this thing happens to communities in the area but you know it's a place where there isn't a large population there isn't going to be as much pushback if they do something there where it's kind of out of sight from city folks like us yeah you know whereas in the Athens unit which is a little closer to Columbus and it's a college town and you know yeah you know a little bit more it's a little bit more known to the outdoors folks I think you know that's a more protected area and when they try to do stuff there there's a lot more pushback from the community so you know they do things like they've got a new bike trail that they're putting in in the Athens unit and they keep messaging that like they post about that on their Facebook all the time this is the way national for it yeah Facebook page but they never mentioned the leasing and they also don't mention opportunities for public input which i think is pretty frustrating so I don't know how much like interaction you've had with the communities down there but in your experience like do you notice a pattern like people who use the force more are they usually more against this or I think it's a little more complicated in that area because a lot of people who do love and use the forest you know they still live in a community where a lot of people are employed by gas and oil and where gas and oil oh there's a lot of things and gives a lot of money to a lot of local programs so I think people don't feel comfortable being sound spoken as they might in other areas like Columbus and happens but certainly there are people who are very concerned very against it even some who have friends and family who work for gas and oil yeah and you know I think it's maybe something that they would speak about differently than people with in other areas but there are a lot of people who aren't afraid to stand up and say hey this is the national course this is not where we should be doing it's like even if they're not necessarily against fracking per se a lot of people in the area feel that we should be at least protecting the mm-hmm and I think it is a really important issue because you know highly used to be 90 percent forest and you know we depleted that too I think something like 10 percent about a hundred years ago and you know know there's been some reforestation I think it might even be as high as like 30 percent no but most of it's privately owned so you know we we think really low growth in terms of forested area and public land in Ohio so you know this is an important humans were a human rights issue in terms of access to natural areas in terms of air quality and water quality and global in terms of climate change Oh totally I mean I feel like there's so many different tears like yeah I mean for one just growing up as a kid in Ohio I for the longest time I thought they were just really nowhere to go it's like I mean backpacking and camping is like my main hobby here there's a book club like last Jonathan Woods I don't know if you've read it yeah it's basically arguing that like children who spend time in nature grow up healthier and also you know grow up to appreciate nature more yeah so there's like that aspect but obviously there's also a whole global aspect but um yeah and it's I don't know it's interesting to me that like I I feel like I would be worried as someone from Columbus like going into these communities that I'd be perceived as like an outsider trying to like tell them what to do but oh yeah I mean it I you know I definitely tried to be mindful when we go into those communities and you know it's not like just people from Columbus going in there like that we have you know founding members of our organization who are from Marietta for example so you know those are people who grew up in the area and grew up hiking in the way and you know want to work with people from around the state and around the region and really anywhere who are concerned about the issue so that we can try to protect what they love you know so I guess like I mean have you or has anyone brought up like the sorts of impacts that fracking has already had on these areas like both in terms of just recreation but also just in general like how it impacts the community or the environment yeah I mean there's there are so many ways that it impacts the area both culturally and in terms of public health and the environment I mean just in the last month or so there have been two natural gas explosions in southeast Ohio and fortunately no one was hurt in either of those but you know that still contaminates the air so yeah you know that impacts people who live near there and you know it didn't get much news coverage unfortunately and that's another big issues because it's not a big population center there's things often go ignore it I mean a lot of these places are already like kind of marginalized regions like a lot like Appalachian towns just absolutely yes so I mean one other thing I was thinking about is like we've gone back packing and way National Forest and I noticed that after it rained the water turned like really orange and I've heard that there's a lot of history with like coal extraction yeah yeah some of the Mount water is almost I don't know permanently but just like it's pretty much yeah that's definitely true and it's really unfortunate because yeah after living in Oregon and backpacking there and then coming back here and like wow I have to carry all my own water because you're not supposed to drink the water even through a filter it's because yeah cause you can't filter out all the contaminants and I know that there have been some efforts for local groups to do restorations I'm not sure how successful they've been but I know rural action is wonder if it's been working on that I think in the Athens unit of the way National Forest and I don't know if it's quite as bad in the Marietta unit but I know that the way National Forest website does say that you should not drink the water there okay say I made a mistake because we did the first full of water hopefully at one time well I didn't the first time I've been there it was out of a small creek that looked pretty good yeah yeah so I was reading that there's also the chance that this might

in state parks in Ohio is that true yeah and I apologize I haven't been following that terribly closely lately but yeah my understanding is that back in I want to say to 2012 a committee was created to make decisions about leasing public land public state land but Governor Kasich has never appointed anyone to the committee so like by his inaction he has in a sense been preventing it from happening but last year the state legislature

proposed yeah I think they proposed a bill to take that right away from him so that they could appoint people to the committee instead and I believe he vetoed it and they overturn his veto and I can't remember exactly where that is now okay that's definitely a good thing for sure yeah but yeah it's definitely a major issue for publicly and both state and federal

I mean so like how would you argue as to someone that they should care about this because I feel like when you look at outdoor recreation you have people from all sorts of different like areas of the political spectrum people who have like different relationships with nature and stuff and I guess like is there anything you've learned talking to people from these communities that you think people should be aware of if they're like hesitant to ya know speaking out against um well I think it's important to consider that you know for a lot of people this is basically their backyard what happens there impacts their community and impacts people's water you know the streams and rivers that run through the way National Forest flow into the Ohio River which is something like 5 million people's drinking water including the city of Cincinnati so people in since then I should be concerned about that you know a lot of people who live in the area you know they don't just use it for recreation you know for hiking and camping and whatnot but they also do things like forage edible plants and mushrooms there they hunt there they teach their children to hunt there and that's you know part of their culture you know that I know a local hunter who lives in the town of Sardis which is a ton of like 600 people on the Ohio River and might by the way National Forest and he's been hunting there since the 70s and he taught his daughter to hunt in the Wayne and um you know he's really passionate about protecting this area because you know that's what he and his family do to you know get away and for recreation and you know it's I may have even met people who like subsist off of hunting and that's just their lifestyle right and it's true for a lot of people and I know there have been cases of deer either getting sick from fracking fluid or like being hit by cars when cuz I mean do they still pour the fracking fluid on the on the roads sometimes because um I know that they do in some places I don't think they do in Ohio currently they definitely don't in Columbus right now but I know that there's been some push to start doing that

yeah I'm not sure if they do it anywhere in Ohio okay but obviously it's a potential threat I guess yeah yeah it definitely is I mean the fracking fluid is extremely harmful to vegetation and animals and I mean there's a an experimental forests in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia where I just went there early last weekend yeah yeah this is so this area it's called fir no experimental forest I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right but a few years ago they actually did a study on how vegetation is impacted by rock raised okay and there were a ton of tree deaths where in the area where they experimented with it and they said you know there's not enough data to apply what we saw here to any other forest but it's like okay certainly there's another to say let's do more studies later look at how this really impacts things before we allow it to happen in other places especially someplace it's only about a hundred miles away and it's the same type of forest yeah I found that like a lot of times I mean it's not the nature of science is that you're trying to disprove things you can't 100% prove anything but I feel like when it comes to these sorts of environmental issues the default for a lot of like politicians is just to take an action because there's no like definitive link or something and it's it's kind of frustrating I also feel like just in general these sorts of things are like they feel kind of nebulous sometimes like you're talking earlier about how cincinnati's drinking water could be effective but that just seems so distant for like somebody living in Cincinnati and I I feel like a lot of people don't often think of these things in these like sort of systemic ways but I also feel like I don't know like you have to bring it up but also I feel like sometimes people connect to these issues the most when you're talking about how they relate to the forest like how they're enjoying it with recreation or whatever yeah I don't know we and another another thing about the Marietta unit for people who like to do things like camping and backpacking it's worth mentioning that the Marietta unit is the only unit of the wain that doesn't have any ATV trails oh um so it's time to go someplace that's a little quieter and you know where there's less of that sort of disruption then like that's a really great place to go also is this off the top of your head a know if this is where Lake vesuvius is Lake vesuvius is actually in the iron tin you okay oh right is this where a wild cat wild cat Hollow is in the Athens okay and yeah that I mean most of the better-known places and the way and are not in the Marietta me in it but there are a few great ones like archers Fork Trail um that's I think it's like a twelve or fourteen mile loop and absolutely beautiful it's a great backpacking area there's also a really great recreation area called lamping homestead and it's there's a little lake with six campsites around it and there's a hiking loo attached to it okay and that's a really beautiful area that's actually inside one of the parcels that could potentially be leased for fracking so it are they focusing mostly on Marietta do you think because there are like less well-known areas or is that more of a geological issue like there shale under there um I I don't know if I can speak definitively to that like I don't know exactly what the composition is but it certainly is the area where they're going to get the least pushback because it's a little bit further away from population centers and there's already so much gas and oil development in the area yeah I don't know so I mean have you have you seen a change in people's attitudes in general like do you think this is an issue that's gotten more or less attention in the last couple years cuz I mean I just moved back to Ohio a little over a year ago so it was pretty off my radar prior to that but you know I have to say I see a lot of people becoming more and more concerned about climate change and about the loss of natural areas so I think that you know it's definitely a growing movement and you know there are people working on these issues all over the region all over the country and all over the world and I think you know the more we can connect with the other groups working on these issues learn from each other and support each other's work the better off we'll all be for sure yeah I get the sense that like it I mean this is just my own personal presentment but I feel like for a while there was a lot of activity and discussion about this issue

it kind of dropped off for a while and now that seems like there's so many different things people are talking about that it's hard to like focus in on one thing yeah yeah it's definitely a tough one I mean you know there's so many important things people are fighting for right now I think you know that there can be kind of a lot of competition or space to talk about things but you know I think we also have to look at the interconnectedness between all of these issues because you know it is a human rights issue it's you know an issue of economic disparity and it's an issue of pollution and you know air quality and water quality and Public Health and you know the the rights of the endangered species I think it's it's pretty complex and then you know you also have to look at the economic issues in terms of you know there's its gas and oil is kind of promoted as this saver that's gonna come in and bring all these jobs to these poor communities but and even the leases are often like seen as this big economic when you get a lot of money for well there's there's some money that goes to schools and things but it's really not a ton of money it just might kind of sound like a lot if you're in an area that's pretty poor but it's you know the leasing of the national parks is not going to pull Appalachian Ohio Britain out of poverty it's not you know it's not a long term solution you know these are temporary jobs for the most part and a lot of the workers are out of state you know they bring in truckers from all over the country and you know most of these companies are owned by people out of state you know you like Texas based companies coming in and they're making money off of our resources and you know one of the biggest issues is that they can actually pour the water from our rivers and streams for fracking and it takes millions of gallons of water to frack a well they don't have to pay for that water so there you know decimating these natural areas at no cost to them yeah what is the effect of that just I mean I imagine any sort of water growing species is gonna yeah and you know it's not something I've done a ton of research on specifically or not but certainly if you're taking water out of these aquatic habitats you're going to impact the species there and you know there is a lot of wildlife that lives in that area I mean certainly a lot of the water is contaminated but there are actually some high quality waterways in the wing as well and you know there are salamanders and muscles and fish and a lot of other things that I don't know about because I'm not a biologist but but I mean I think in general there's an understanding that like all of these things are connected and irrationally it'll come back and bite us yeah so you you're talking of how these aren't temporary or these aren't permanent or like long-term solutions like do you do you know more about that like when they when they do open up a new pad or something I mean how many people get employed for how long I don't have statistics on that but you know it's just a matter of the fact that these are not renewable resources you know you frack a well and you get gas out of it but you know then you frack it again you get less the next time and you know eventually it runs out and then you know you eventually run out of material so and I mentioned the impact it would have would also like potentially do more harm than good yeah I mean it only hurts property values and I actually know a woman who taught biology in Monroe County Ohio for 30 years she owns a home there and was planning to retire there she has decided she's not going to stay there she's gonna move back to Columbus where she grew up because she doesn't want to be in the middle of a fracas own she says you know when she was there she can't even sleep at night because there's so much noise from the trucks so it's almost like a brain drain sort of issue yeah yeah it's really sad well I mean so like what's what is the solution for these communities I guess because I mean I think a lot of people in those communities do see this as like this economic boom and it's hard to like look into the long-term when you're already living in an impoverished and you know aids I definitely think that that's a challenging issue to address and I don't have all the solutions but I think we need to think more long-term than just you know this is going to provide some jobs right now I think we have to think about you know how is this going to impact to the health of your community you know how long can you even live there how bad is going to get or aren't you worried about your water being contaminated aren't you worried about another pipeline explosion [Music]

you know what's that like for your kids and you know We certainly have other options for jobs we just need to get there you know like there's more job growth in solar than in any other energy industry so I think you know we just need people in positions of power to make that a priority because right now you know gas and oil is being subsidized so much you know it's a lot easier for them to create high-paying jobs but if we can you know get everyone in an alignment on focusing on what's really good for the future of our country and for the world I think that we can get to where those renewable jobs will pay more and be more abundant and you know I know that there is a lot of movement even in Appalachia to bring more solar to the area I know that over some solar coops down there you know if you if you go down to Athens like you'll see all the solar panels on the recreation center there there are a number of businesses that are you know trying

to move in that direction it's just it's just taking a while yeah yeah I don't know like

is

like I was thinking about how a lot of the initial like the birth of the environmental movement like hundreds of years ago a lot of it had to do with people who are hunting animals and like not what we usually associate with environmentalists today some I'm hoping that like people in these communities who are really connected to the land will also start I mean I'm sure a lot of them really are that's kind of pretentious of me to say that but I mean I just yeah yeah I think you know what we perceive as being you know the traditional environmentalist

you know I think we have to get past that because you know it doesn't matter whether someone calls himself an environmentalist or not or you know whether you know whether they're a vegan or someone who hunts all the time and eats dear me you know I think we really need to look at the impacts of ruining our

and how that impacts everyone we need to consider what we're losing that impacts you whether you're an environmentalist or not so you know it's not really I think it's becoming less of a cultural divide between necessarily like bitter Peas I was gonna ask that like have you noticed like I mean obviously there's historical tensions between like blue-collar fossil fuel workers and like environmentalists but there there have also been lots of moments where they've come together and like you know fought together for the cultivate communities have you noticed a lot of that happening here or I mean I certainly see it happening some there certainly are hunters and fishermen and you know a lot of people who are from the Appalachian area and you know not people who you would see and think that person looks like an environmentalist who really are becoming really concerned with these issues people who you know live in places like Sardis oh hi oh who are really concerned about climate change and are thinking about putting solar panels on their houses you know I think that a lot of people despite all the propaganda that's out there to tell them otherwise are starting to see that this is an issue that's going to impact all of us and it's going to impact their children and grandchildren yeah cuz I found that I mean I feel like it this whole push to protect these wild areas would be stronger or will be stronger once you know different groups with different backgrounds come together and I found that like when communities who are from completely different backgrounds work together they they learn to overcome their differences sure we're consolidating right yeah yeah I think you know it's really important to find commonalities and work with people who

Sara Lee coming from the same place you are but you know want the same thing in the end you know I think we have to be mindful of how you know our backgrounds and our different privileges might shape what we think of as being an environmentalist and you know understand where other people are coming from you know not everyone can afford to necessarily they fly the most eco-friendly product all the time or put solar panels on their house but you know there are a lot of people who are you know doing what they can within their means and I think we also need to get away from looking so much at you know conscious consumerism as the solution I think you know there what we really need to do is hold these companies that are destroying our environment accountable and hold other politicians accountable I think you know we need to take the emphasis of you know shaming people for you know not living up to this standard of what we consider to be eco friendly and be more inclusive yeah I think that's a lot of I mean whether it's a whether it's a valid sort of assumption or not I feel like that's where a lot of people's frustrations come when it comes with like environmental movement as a whole is there's this impression whether or not it's true that like it's just people looking down on other people telling them that they're not like acting in the right way and I feel like so often we focus too much on individual actions instead of like the broader I mean even among like so just to bring it back to like plod or renovation thing like there's if you said that a hiker shouldn't pollute in the forest or litter that's a completely uncontroversial statement but when you talk about what a company should do in a forest and how what they're in that should be suddenly there's controversy and it's I think a lot of that comes from this focus on like individuality individual actions

and I don't know I mean like it's it's obvious still a problem when when someone litters and it's like annoying to find trash in a fire pit when you're camping but it's also like if somebody breaks a few rules here in there that impact is so much smaller than what this could be yeah that's that's a very good point you know I think part of that is that it's just easier to point a finger and it a powerless individual than you know a big multinational corporation yeah

and I also sometimes wonder if some of these divisions are like brought about in order to prevent any of life meaningful actions and very well yeah I don't know I think you had mentioned before that there was some recent news yeah yeah so so this leasing has been going on for a while and one of the biggest concerns about it is that the way National Forest resource management plan is outdated that it does not take into consideration the impacts of unconventional fracking because it was created with only vertical fracking in mind and the u.s. Forest Service has just announced that they are going to update the forest a little plan okay so that's actually a really big deal because it could go either way it could you know turn into fewer protections for only national forests but if there's enough public engagement it could go our way it could go towards more protection it could be you know I mean I don't think it's likely but it could be no leasing for fracking at all it could be you know less logging it could be

you know more maybe even like designations of more future old forest areas things like that things where you know we're looking into the future and saying we want this area to be here for future generations we want to be better than it is now before we get more into that out of curiosity like D what are your impressions of people's attitudes within the Forest Service like I feel like it could go either way and I my assumption is that like forest rangers or people who are working for them might be more sympathetic to trying to keep cracking out but people higher up like I don't know I mean I haven't pressed anyone who I've spoken to at the office for their opinion you know that in in my experience the you know the people who answered the phone at the way National Forest headquarters are very pleasant and friendly and dreadful but the forest supervisor tony's Gardena who i've not in that personally but he you know has been pretty supportive both in policing so that's an area of frustration you know we'd like to see someone who you know how like you know the LEAs Forest Service has a motto care for the land serve the people and we feel very strongly that that's not what they're doing right now so you know it's frustrating to see things like Tony Scardino writing op-eds in the Columbus Dispatch about how this is good for the community and you know the regional Forester in Milwaukee for the eastern states division could stop this her name's Kathleen Atkinson we have her phone number on our website apparently like to give her a call perhaps on the 22nd when the next auction is happening and let her know that you know this is not what people want this isn't what we want done with our forests and we you know are frustrated that the u.s. Forest Service isn't doing more to protect the area

well I mean that brings like a a good point which is how can people get involved you mentioned calling her on the 22nd yeah yeah what else um well the first public meeting about the forest management plan update is on the 21st the day before the auction and it's being a held at the canal CH Canal Winchester community center from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. so I strongly encourage anyone who's concerned about this issue whether you have something to say or you just want to learn more about what's happening please show up to that meeting if you can because you know the more people come and participate the more likely it is that we'll be able to make positive changes happen I would also encourage people to get involved in other ways if they can on April 14th we are having a bio blitz and the Mariotti Boy National Forest we strongly encourage people to come out and participate is that where they what is that exactly like so we are actually working with the evolution and ecology grad students Club at Ohio State ok we are going to get a bunch of people a bunch of you know people who are experts on identifying species but also just a bunch of people from the community who want to go out and enjoy the forest and learn more about natural areas to go out and there's an app called I naturalist it's a free app that you yeah it's actually really cool you can just take photos of what whatever you see you know be it a mushroom or a squirrel or a bird or a tree you upload the photo and the app will actually make suggestions about what the species is but you can leave it blank and wait for someone with more expertise to identify it or you can tend to take a guess and then someone will either confirm what it is or be like no it's actually this and once it gets enough data enough people saying that it's a certain thing it will be considered a research grade identification okay and so you know it's a way for more people to get out and learn more about the wildlife in the area but it's also a way to possibly come away with some data that will be useful because right now the US Forest Service is saying that there are no endangered species in the Marietta unitive for Wayne National Forest and a lot of people think that that's probably not actually true and that there's just no one looking for them so no it would be great if we did come away with evidence that there are some there and are they also trying to see how these species will be impacted like or how they are being impacted by any sort of I mean we right now we're just kind of looking for what species are present but you know we certainly are working with other groups who have information about how they have been and can be impacted in the future by these activities it's really cool no I mean I love like identifying wild mushrooms and stuff yeah we should come out yeah

when is that again April 14th okay yeah and we're meeting at Leith run and that's one of the bigger recreation areas in the Marietta unit it's right off of Route seven near new metamoris okay so what about like people outside of Ohio I mean I know there's like certain states that are dealing with similar issues Pennsylvania for sure Colorado I think but I mean if if someone isn't from the state what would you suggest they do well every time there's an auction there's a protest period for it so anyone who's concerned about protecting the way National Forest from these leases can write a letter to the Bureau of Land Management testing the option the protostrator just ended for the upcoming option but these auctions are helped quarterly so there will likely be another one in June and one in September and one in December so it's usually two months before the auction being a protest period opens and it lasts for about a month so during that period people can either mail or fax a letter explaining why they believe this shouldn't go for so that's you know one oh that's like an actual official option for people to give feedback to management about these leases it's a can actual thing that the state but you know you can certainly contact them even if it's not a protestor you can contact the eastern states division of their land management you can contact the eastern states division of the u.s. Forest Service get in contact the way National Forest headquarters in Nelsonville you can contact your legislators sure Brown for example you know I think that if he heard four more people he sort of is like on the fence about this right because he has not taken as which I do find a little frustrating I imagine I wonder if that's because he tries to like support workers yeah and you know I think that that is a part of it I mean you know as long as people are looking at this as something that's going to come and save them I think you know they might not vote for someone who is against it right I think it's really the job of our politicians to leave this discussion I think that you know they need to be the ones getting out there and showing people that we have other options you know it can't just be you know fear of something being unpopular we'll never get anywhere that way um well do you have any final thoughts before oh you're fine well I just really hope that more people will consider getting involved we have a website it's keeping wild calm we're also on Facebook Instagram Twitter so you know I strongly encourage people to reach out if they're interested in getting involved we're always looking for more volunteers that people would like to buy a t-shirt we do have t-shirts they look like and you can also make donations to paypal on our website so you know we really appreciate any support people can give us whether it's just showing up to events or making a phone call or making a donation you know anything people can do to keep this moving forward and just spread the word about what's happening I think you know it's really what we're hopeful for and I also wanted to mention we are a co-sponsor this year the Heartless first council will open is a regional gathering of forest protectors that happens every year and this year it's going to be in western Pennsylvania with a focus on Pennsylvania Ohio and West Virginia so I strongly encourage people who are interested in protecting forests in this region to make it out there if they can because you think it's gonna be a really great event with a lot of really awesome people who are working on this issue a lot of people from around the region who have actually won some of these battles in the past and know a lot about how to strategize awesome

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