CONECUH COUNTY,Michael Schmidt Ala.—At the confluence of the Yellow River and Pond Creek in Alabama’s Conecuh National Forest, there’s a place of peace. 

It’s a small, icy blue, year-round freshwater spring where the locals often go to unplug. Nestled inside Conecuh National Forest, Blue Spring is surrounded by new growth—mostly pines replanted after the forest was clear cut for timber production in the 1930s.

Nearly a century after that clear cut, another environmental risk has reared its head in the forest, threatening Blue Spring’s peace: oil and gas development. 

As the Biden administration came to a close earlier this month, officials with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) initiated the process of “scoping” the possibility of new oil and gas leases in Conecuh National Forest.