"An unknown number of abandoned oil and gas wells dot the National Park System, but the one at Cuyahoga Valley National Park revealed itself with a whistling plume of colorless, odorless, and potentially lethal, methane gas.
If a group of hikers had not noticed it when they went off trail in the leafy park in northeastern Ohio, it's unclear how long the well might have vented the toxic gas. That's because President Donald Trump's energetic shrinkage of the federal workforce recently culled the last National Park Service staffer from the agency's office responsible for identifying and dealing with such orphan wells.
Forrest Smith was the last man standing in the Park Service’s Geologic Resources Division that worked to identify and plug these wells. He was let go in September after six years with the agency.
“They got rid of my health insurance and all that stuff and sent me a last paycheck,” recalled Smith, who was the division’s lead engineer. “I didn't get anything from HR saying, ‘You know, you're not coming back in early September.’”"
Kurt Repanshek reports for National Parks Traveler November 20, 2025.
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