RENO, Nev. (AP) — A rural county has joined an environmental group in challenging an oil and gas lease sale in central Nevada that could open 270 square miles of public land to hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.

Lander County and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed formal administrative protests over the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s July 17 sale of leases in 102 parcels around Big Smokey Valley between Austin and Tonopah.