A few years back OSFR was criticized for opposing fracking because few thought fracking would come go Florida. Think again, this fight is not going away.
Listen to this below, it is such a lot of malarky that we hear all the time from well drillers:
“The permit application includes well control procedures, preventative measures and contingency plans for responding to potential accidents and spills,” the draft permit said. “Best management practices will be employed to reuse or dispose of drilling fluids, cuttings and formation water. Test fluids and gas will be recovered, sold, flared or hauled to permitted out-of-state facilities.”
The spills and the accidents will happen. The toxic fluids will pollute. Wells will be left open for taxpayers to close. Sinkholes may very well open up and earthquakes may occur.
This is like the Suwannee River Water Management District Board of Directors, saying “we will OK this permit/procedure since you are promising to monitor the situation.” It is so laughable since monitoring means observing but does not require suspension of activity in case of contamination/pollution or destruction. Observation costs little and permits all.
But the biggest laugh comes from this: “A state Outstanding Florida Water designation can offer special protections to water bodies.” These special designations serve only for DEP greenwashing propaganda; we have yet to see one protect a river from DEP-allowed damage.
The company wants to drill in a sensitive area, but the DEP cares more for industry than the environment.
Read the original article here in WMNFNews.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Fight gears up over a Florida oil drilling permit
By Jim Saunders Jun 18, 2024 ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — A legal battle is moving forward over a plan to drill for oil and gas in part of rural Northwest Florida.
The environmental organization Apalachicola Riverkeeper is challenging a draft permit that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection approved in April for a company to drill an exploratory well in Calhoun County. The challenge was sent Monday to the state Division of Administrative Hearings, where a judge will consider whether the project should advance.
Louisiana-based Clearwater Land & Minerals FLA, LLC, plans to drill a well in an unincorporated area of Calhoun County, between Tallahassee and Panama City. But Apalachicola Riverkeeper contends that the project threatens the Apalachicola River and would be in the river’s floodplain.
“The drilling site is not consistent with the relevant Department (of Environmental Protection) rules and statutes, which require applicants to locate projects to minimize impacts to sensitive areas and environments,” Apalachicola Riverkeeper’s petition for an administrative hearing said. “Instead, the drilling site selected by the applicant (Clearwater Land & Minerals FLA) is in a sensitive area and environment.”
But the department’s draft permit pointed to safeguards planned for the project.
“The permit application includes well control procedures, preventative measures and contingency plans for responding to potential accidents and spills,” the draft permit said. “Best management practices will be employed to reuse or dispose of drilling fluids, cuttings and formation water. Test fluids and gas will be recovered, sold, flared or hauled to permitted out-of-state facilities….”
Environmental conditions in the Apalachicola River, however, have long been a high-profile issue. The river is part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system, which starts in northern Georgia, crosses into Alabama and ends in Apalachicola Bay in Florida.
In the petition for an administrative hearing, Apalachicola Riverkeeper made a series of arguments, including that the drilling project would be “in a sensitive environment or sensitive area as it is in the floodplain of the Apalachicola River, which is an Outstanding Florida Water and an ecologically diverse natural area with state, national and international significance.”
A state Outstanding Florida Water designation can offer special protections to water bodies.
Also, the petition cited concerns about the project being exposed to the “foreseeable risk of flooding from the Apalachicola River and the foreseeable likelihood of pollution from the site being carried away to the surrounding area and beyond by floodwaters, thus affecting this sensitive area and environment.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, an administrative law judge had not been assigned to the case, according to an online docket.
