The U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday it approved limited hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and natural gas in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia and West Virginia.
The Forest Service said in a release its plan limits the amount of land available for oil and gas leases to 10,000 acres, down from 995,000 acres under the forest’s previous management plan. The forest consists of 1.1 million acres.
The 10,000 acres already had been leased under the previous Forest Land and Resource Management Plan, which was last revised in 1993, the Forest Service said.
Despite the existing leases, the service said the forest has never been a supplier of natural gas and there has been no recent expression of interest in exploring or developing forest land for that purpose.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and various environmental groups have opposed fracking in the George Washington National Forest. McAuliffe, however, has supported oil and gas drilling by fracking or other means elsewhere in the state.
The Forest Service said any proposal to develop existing leases would need to undergo additional environmental analysis that would provide opportunities for public comment and engagement.
Hydraulic fracturing is a method of drilling for oil and gas in shale fields by injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to free up oil or gas.
Of the 193 million acres in the U.S. national forest system, the Bureau of Land Management estimates there are about 57 million acres of federal land that have potential oil and gas reserves, according to the Forest Service website.
Of this, just about 5.3 million acres are now leased through 6,700 leases and 72 percent of those leases have not been developed for production, according to the website.