The U.S. Department of Agriculture has closed its offices at the Wayne National Forest to the public through Tuesday, the day it auctions 16 hundred acres for fracking. 50 environmentalists and Native-Americans demonstrated against the sale and the environmentally-damaging drilling technique on Saturday. Similar protests have been held in downtown Columbus. Opponents also delivered more than 99 thousand petition signatures to the U.S. Department of the Interior to stop the auction. They say fracking will harm water systems and wildlife. A Bureau of Land Management study found the high-pressure oil-and-gas drilling technique would have no significant environmental impact. The U.S. EPA recently changed a report on fracking at the last minute to downplay the negative effects.