Legislation aims to protect Florida's sensitive waterways from oil drilling
A bill that blocks a proposed oil well along the Apalachicola River and prohibits oil and gas drilling near sensitive waterways in north, east and south Florida is headed for the House floor.
The bill (HB 1143) by Rep. Jason Shoaf, R-Port St. Joe, and Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, cleared the State Affairs Committee Tuesday on a unanimous vote after a parade of Franklin County craft brewers, boat operators and tour guides, along with oyster farmers, told lawmakers their livelihood depends on clean water.
They all said a north Florida coastal economy devastated by fear of contamination after the 2010 BP oil spill that contributed to a fishery collapse should not again be put at risk by a wildcat oil rig Clearwater Land and Minerals wants to construct 60 miles upriver from the Apalachicola Bay.
'We don't have options to work in big business. We work on the water. We work with our hands. So it's not a matter if an oil spill happens. It's a matter of when industrial contaminants hit our waterways, pollute our local water resources and ruin our estuary,' said Thomas Saunders of LuckyFly Charters of Apalachicola.
What began as a local effort to protect the Apalachicola River has morphed into legislation that would also place a buffer around the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), where the state's tallest dunes can be found south of St. Augustine, and the Rookery Bay NERR near Naples, home to the Florida panther.
Those two and Apalachicola Bay are ecologically diverse estuaries, bodies of water where rivers meet the sea, managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the state for research and conservation. There are 30 NERRs nationwide and the designation provided Shoaf the legislative hook needed to block oil drilling in the north Florida wilderness.
Last summer, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection announced it would permit a Clearwater Land and Minerals exploratory well in Calhoun County at Dead Lakes, in the middle of the Apalachicola NERR, which runs east and west of the river as it flows towards the Apalachicola Bay.
Shoaf wrote a proposal to prohibit exploration, drilling, or production of oil and gas within 10 miles of a NERR – effectively blocking the Clearwater project.
Eric Hamilton of the American Petroleum Institute said he would like to continue to talk to lawmakers about the 10-mile buffer zone. 'We feel it is a bit too far. It's arbitrary. There is no scientific or historic precedent that 10 miles is the right distance,' Hamilton said.
No one objected, however, when Rep. Lindsey Cross, D-St. Petersburg, an environmental scientist, said in debate that 10 miles should be the minimal buffer for an oil project. The measure also requires DEP to conduct a test before issuing any permit to drill within one mile of a water body. Hamilton didn't object to a one-mile buffer zone.
The test would balance the potential harm of a drilling well accident or blowout with the environmental and economic health of a region. Florida is not a major player in the oil industry, contributing fewer than 2,000 of the 13 million barrels a day the U.S. produces, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Adrian Johnson of the state's aquaculture association said most of the state's oyster farms are offshore of Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla counties. Johnson said in the past five years the three counties have grown oyster farming into a $50 million industry and produce one-third of the state's oysters.
'We have little control over what Mother Nature throws at us, but we do have the power to avert a potential disaster that drilling in our area could cause,' added Gayle Johnson of the Indian Lagoon Oyster Co.
The House bill will be scheduled for floor debate and a final vote.
A Senate companion (SB 1300) has two more committees to clear.
The legislative session is currently scheduled to end May 2.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida oyster farmers fear impact of oil drilling on Gulf waters
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