The head of the state department of natural resources is speaking out in support of the plans to allow drilling in state parks. ODNR director David Mustine says the agency needs to find new sources of revenue, and he says the state can’t ignore the potential of the oil and natural gas that could be just beneath the surface of about 30-thousand acres of parkland.
The drilling proposal has support from Republicans who control the House and Senate, but environmentalists say it will turn natural parks into industrial parks. And drilling could include the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” into rock formations and shale rock. But Mustine says fracking has been done for decades in Ohio and the state has a lot of experience in dealing with the process.