Submit Your Comment: Keep Fracking Out of National Parks

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

If you’ve never been to California’s Sequoia National Park, you need to put it on your list. There’s just nothing that compares to walking among trees that scrape the sky — it’s something no photo can really prepare you for.

Less than two miles away from the park, oil companies may soon be tearing up the landscape and setting up fracking operations — IF a new administration plan is approved.

In April, the Interior Department unveiled a plan to open up a massive swath of Central and Southern California’s public lands for oil development. This ends what had effectively been a five-year moratorium on leasing federal lands in the state.¹

We could soon see fracking just south of Yosemite National Park and within two miles of Sequoia National Park.²

Yosemite and Sequoia national parks are too precious to risk. Go to https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=32550 to tell the administration: No fracking near our national parks.

We’ve seen over the years how dirty and dangerous fracking can be. Developed to squeeze more oil out of the ground after the more easily extracted supplies have already been tapped, fracking operations trample the landscape, disrupt wildlife habitat, shoot toxic chemicals into the ground and endanger aquifers, pollute the air, and threaten people’s health.

This is happening at the same time that the UN is warning of a catastrophic loss of wildlife around the globe.³

You’d be hard pressed to find a place where fracking would put more wildlife at risk. Sequoia National Park alone is home to more than 300 kinds of animal, from fish to foxes, birds to badgers. Due to its wide range in elevation (1,500 feet at its lowest, 14,494 at its highest), it teems with a rich diversity of life.⁴

And the Trump administration plan threatens wildlife far beyond Sequoia as well. Also at risk are lands near vital wildlife habitats such as the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge and the Wind Wolves Preserve.⁵

Submit your public comment today: Keep fracking away from national parks.

Here’s the silver lining: The plan is not yet final. The Interior Department is accepting public comments on the proposal from now until June 10. It’s critical that we all take this opportunity to stand up for America’s special places and the wildlife that call them home.

Our country — and the world — is already running short on nature. We should cherish and preserve what we still have, not put it at risk to squeeze the last few drops of oil out of the ground — especially when clean alternatives like wind and solar are so readily available.

Will you stand up for our national parks and wildlife today?

1. Kurtis Alexander, “Trump administration unveils plan to open up 1 million California acres to oil drilling,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 25, 2019.
2. Gabrielle Canon, “Trump plans to allow fracking near California’s national parks,” The Guardian, April 26, 2019.
3. Darryl Fears, “One million species face extinction, U.N. report says. And humans will suffer as a result,” The Washington Post, May 6, 2019.
4. “Sequoia Wildlife,” Sequoia & King’s Canyon National Parks, accessed May 8, 2019.
5. Anna M. Phillips, “Trump fracking plan targets over 1 million acres in California,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2019.