Environmentalists warn of disaster for Everglades if oil fracking bill passes Florida politicians are debating a proposed law that would remove right of cities and counties to ban fracking and instead give power to a single state agency Richard Luscombe in Miami Tuesday 19 January 2016 19.02 GMT
Environmentalists are warning of a potential ecological disaster for the Florida Everglades if state lawmakers approve a measure that would open the door to fracking in the sensitive wetlands. On Tuesday, politicians in Tallahassee were debating a proposed new law that would remove the right of local municipalities to pass ordinances or resolutions banning fracking and instead place all regulation and oversight of drilling for oil into the hands of a single state agency. Opponents fear that removing the rights of cities and counties to prohibit fracking, and voiding the dozens of resolutions already passed by them, would make it easier for the oil industry to obtain permits to drill in the ecologically fragile Everglades. That, they say, would threaten the habitat of numerous species of wildlife in the so-called River of Grass and move heavy drilling equipment closer to residential areas. In particular, they fear that the controversial drilling practice, which uses high pressure water and acid to release contained oil or gas, could lead to the seeping of toxic chemicals into the porous limestone bedrock throughout the Everglades, and into the underground Biscayne Aquifer that is the only source of fresh water for more than three million people in south Florida. “Florida already bans offshore drilling off its coasts. The Everglades should be treated the same way,” said Matt Schwartz, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association, whose members were joining a protest rally at the Florida state capitol in Tallahassee on Tuesday. “And bringing fracking into the karst aquifer that underlies the Everglades is a kind of shortsightedness bordering on the insane. At the very least it would be highly irresponsible.” Florida’s oil industry is decidedly small scale, producing fewer than 200m barrels per year, mostly from wells in the Panhandle, and the most recent estimates by the US Geological Survey and US Energy Information Administration both suggest limited reserves. But a number of companies have expressed interest in exploratory drilling and seismic testing in the Everglades. The bill, which passed the Florida senate’s environmental and protection committee last week, is set for debate by the entire state senate, though similar proposals in recent years failed to attract the necessary support to get to a vote. “Although we did stop them from creating new pro-fracking legislation, like zombies they keep raising their deadly bills again and again, now for the 2016 session,” said Amy Datz, an environmental scientist with the Florida Climate Institute, a network of research organisations including the state’s leading public universities. “The resolutions to ban fracking represent anyone who likes to drink, bathe in, wash their clothes and dishes in, cook, fish and swim in fresh clean water.