CONECUH COUNTY, Ala.—At the confluence of the Yellow River and Pond Creek in Alabama’s Conecuh National Forest, there’s a place of peace.
It’s a small, icy blue, year-round freshwater spring where the locals often go to unplug. Nestled inside Conecuh National Forest, Blue Spring is surrounded by new growth—mostly pines replanted after the forest was clear cut for timber production in the 1930s.
Nearly a century after that clear cut, another environmental risk has reared its head in the forest, threatening Blue Spring’s peace: oil and gas development.
As the Biden administration came to a close earlier this month, officials with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) initiated the process of “scoping” the possibility of new oil and gas leases in Conecuh National Forest.
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On Jan. 6, USFS announced it would soon begin a 30-day comment period to solicit public opinion on the proposal, which includes the continued availability of tens of thousands of acres of federal land for oil and gas leasing and the possibility of leasing an additional, nearly 3,000 acres where the federal government owns mineral rights but not surface rights.
Conecuh National Forest stretches along the Alabama-Florida border, spanning more than 85,000 acres across two counties in the Yellowhammer State.
Past efforts to lease large tracts of land in Alabama’s national forests have been unsuccessful, with a planned 2012 lease auction nixed as a result of public outrage over environmental concerns.
Federal oil and gases leases in Alabama aren’t uncommon, though they’re rarely commercially productive, records show. Still, any oil and gas buildout can present various environmental risks, including air and water pollution in an area meant to be preserved as part of America’s environmental heritage, experts warn.
The Forest Service itself acknowledged the various risks involved in oil and gas leasing within Alabama’s national forests in a 2004 environmental impact assessment, though the agency also emphasized in the document its stated goal of expanding energy production and dismissed certain environmental impacts of the project as “negligible.”
In 2012, when federal officials renewed their interest in fossil fuel leases in Alabama, agency representatives pointed to the 2004 environmental assessment as a reason to allow for additional oil and gas development. Environmentalists objected to that analysis, arguing that relying on a then eight-year-old assessment to potentially approve thousands of acres of public lands for extraction was dishonest and legally dubious.
“We have a strong sense of place in the South, and our public forests should not be sold to the highest bidder to be destroyed for short-term profit,” Tracy Davids, director of Wild South, said of the 2012 proposal at the time. “These are the places that families hunt, fish, hike and recreate. Oil and gas drilling will ruin these lands and force us off of our national forests. This is an assault on our heritage and we won’t stand for it.”
This month’s announcement that the Forest Service will analyze oil and gas leasing within Conecuh National Forest may be a way for federal officials to shore up their legal position, updating the environmental assessment necessary for defending against litigation over new oil and gas leases there.
The new analysis would assess “how changed conditions and circumstances could result in a need to update leasing availability decisions described in the 2004 Forest Plan,” the announcement by the agency said.
The USFS’ previous environmental assessment did not include any analysis of the impact of expanded oil and gas development on efforts to mitigate climate change, something environmentalists argue should undoubtedly be part of the government’s decision-making calculus.
This month’s announcement did not mention climate change or greenhouse gas emissions but did say that updating the forest plan and other scoping documents would further government policy to “foster and encourage private enterprise in the development of economically sound and stable industries.”
“This is a global biodiversity hotspot that’s being potentially targeted for oil and gas drilling.”
— Will Harlan, Center for Biological Diversity
Including impacts on climate change in any environmental assessment around oil and gas development seems far less likely under Trump, who as a candidate regularly trumpeted oil and gas extraction, repeating the conservative catchphrase, “Drill, baby, drill.”
Much of the area proposed for lease availability surrounds recreation sites within the national forest, including Blue Lake, Open Pond, Conecuh Shooting Range and the Leon Brooks Hines Public Fishing Lake.
Will Harlan, southeast director and senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity, said environmentalists are worried about the new proposal, which he called “incredibly dangerous.”
“Conecuh National Forest is less than 1 percent of Alabama’s land, so when we’re talking about having oil and gas sites in the national forest, it’s concerning,” he said. “Alabama’s national forests rank No. 1 in the country for species diversity, especially of fish, turtles and mollusks,” he said. “This is a global biodiversity hotspot that’s being potentially targeted for oil and gas drilling.”
Allowing expanded oil and gas development in the forest would present an unnecessary risk, Harlan said.
“There are plenty of lands where oil and gas drilling can occur, but not this spectacularly diverse national forest,” Harlan said.
The U.S. Forest Service’s informal 30-day public comment period ends Feb. 12. Comments on the proposal can be submitted at this website or mailed to Garner Westbrook, USDA Forest Service, 2946 Chestnut St., Montgomery, Alabama, 36107.
The agency will hold an open house “for the interested public and partners” in Andalusia, Alabama, on Tuesday, Jan. 28, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the USDA Andalusia Service Center, located at 23952 Highway 55.
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Lee Hedgepeth
Reporter, Alabama
Lee Hedgepeth is Inside Climate News’ Alabama reporter. Raised in Grand Bay, Alabama, a small town on the Gulf Coast, Lee holds master’s degrees in community journalism and political development from the University of Alabama and Tulane University. Lee is the founder of Tread, a newsletter of Southern journalism, and has also worked for news outlets across Alabama, including CBS 42, Alabama Political Reporter and the Anniston Star. His reporting has focused on issues impacting members of marginalized groups, including homelessness, poverty, and the death penalty. His award-winning journalism has appeared in publications across the country and has been cited by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, among others.
