NPCA, Park Ranger Group Take Fracking Message to Congress

Earlier this year, NPCA released an in-depth look at fracking’s impact on our national parks in the report, “National Parks and Hydraulic Fracturing: Balancing Energy Needs, Nature, and America’s National Heritage.” Though the report’s case studies showed potentially dramatic impacts on some of the country’s most important landscapes, waterways, and wildlife species, we know that publication of the information is just the beginning. Change is a process, and to protect our parks from the impacts of fracking near their borders, we need to make sure the right people have the right knowledge.

Many of “the right people” in this case are in Congress, and with that in mind, NPCA held a briefing on Capitol Hill last week to share our research with a standing-room-only crowd of congressional staffers about the potential impacts of fracking on national parks. NPCA partnered in this effort with a group called Park Rangers for Our Lands, made up of retired National Park Service rangers working to protect their parks from the harmful side effects of energy development near the parks.

NPCA’s Vice President for the Center for Park Research Dr. Jim Nations opened the event with a lively discussion of the process of hydraulic fracturing and its possible impacts on national parks. He recounted NPCA’s concerns to the note-taking crowd: increased air and water pollution seeping across national park borders, a reduction in national park stream flow resulting from the millions of gallons of water needed to frack a well, wildlife habitat fragmented by well pad development and its associated infrastructure, and noise pollution and visual disruption resulting from the industrialization of national park surroundings.

Next, Ellis Richard—founder of Park Rangers for Our Lands and former ranger at Grand Canyon National Park, the Gateway Arch, Grand Teton National Park, and other parks—discussed his on-the-ground experience with fracking’s impact on western parks, including Dinosaur National Monument and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Park rangers are a trusted voice when it comes to the protection of national parks, and Ellis brought a welcome first-hand perspective to the proceeding.

NPCA hopes to continue our collaboration with Park Rangers for Our Lands and work further with Congress, the Obama administration, and the public to address threats to our national parks from energy development on lands adjacent to national parks. Further, NPCA continues to push for stronger park protections in the Bureau of Land Management’s fracking rule, which will affect many parks, especially in the West.