April 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 46

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Fracking on Parkland in Appalachia
Study looks at the impact of hydraulic fracturing on public park usage
By Jonathan Casper, Ph.D., Timothy Kellison, Ph.D., Kyle Bunds, Ph.D. and Josh Newman, Ph.D.

H

ydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is becoming an increasingly prevalent issue for park and recreation professionals. Energy companies
are becoming increasingly active stakeholders in parks and recreation because of the valuable pockets of natural gas that underlie
many public spaces. Recently, there has been growing interest in placing exploration and extraction wells in or adjacent to a number of public park and
forest systems across Europe and North America. Opponents of fracking leases
on public land have argued that in addition to air contaminants and polluted
greywater on recreational fields, park acreage will be lost to fracking operations
and park attendance will decrease. For administrators and policymakers, these
outcomes would be especially troubling given the role that public green spaces
are expected to play in contributing to health and well-being. In 2015, we conducted a study to understand perceptions of fracking by park visitors.
Our Study
We conducted a preliminary exploration of the potential effects of
fracking on or near publicly accessible parkland, focusing in particular
on the possible implications for park
users and administrators. To achieve

44	 Parks & Recreation

this aim, a purposive sampling technique was used to distribute surveys
to self-identified park users living in
five states (Kentucky, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia)
in the Appalachian Basin of the eastern United States (n = 255). This re-

| A P R I L 2 0 1 6 | W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G

gion was selected because it is home
to a number of state and national
parks - public land used for sport
and recreation - currently considering or having already consented
to fracking. The study covered three
general themes: (1) general attitudes
toward fracking, (2) attitudes toward
fracking on public land and (3) perceived impact of fracking on park
usage.
Each respondent reported visiting
a local, state or national park at least
once per year, with more than 40 percent visiting at least once per month.
Respondents reported the following
characteristics: self-identified gender
was 58 percent female and 42 percent male; average age was between
34 to 44 years old; average family income was $50,000 - $79,000; level of



April 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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