Older Florida natives have witnessed the overdevelopment of Florida in the past half century or so, and they’re not happy about it. Novelist, Miami Herald columnist and Alligator alumnus Carl Hiaasen has covered the issue extensively; he told NPR last year, “Try to imagine ... the transformation you would watch if you lived here. It’s traumatic.”
Enter Big Oil.
According to NPR, Florida has granted a Texas oil company permission to drill an exploratory well in the western part of the Everglades in Naples. The Dan A. Hughes Co. is seeking permission to build an injection well, which would produce millions of gallons of toxic brine as a result of the drilling process. And although the company claims there will be no fracking involved, Florida’s rules allow it to begin fracking if Dan A. Hughes Co. changes its mind.
Naples residents and environmental groups are calling on both the Environmental Protection Agency to deny the Dan A. Hughes Co.’s request and the state of Florida to reverse its decision on exploratory drilling in the Everglades.
Preserve Our Paradise, a state advocacy group battling against an oil-industry takeover of the Everglades, has said there’s simply no reason for oil drilling in the state of Florida.
“There are only small amounts of fossil fuel in Florida, and with many forms of green energy available, there is simply no need to risk despoiling Florida in this way,” the group’s website reads. “As former Exxon executive Edward Glab has said, ‘The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.’”
It’s a dramatic narrative straight out of “Erin Brockovich”: Big company swoops in, tries to dupe locals and state officials and exploits the resources of a struggling area. And while Floridians aren’t having any of it, the state seems OK with the drilling.
The head of Florida’s Petroleum Council assured NPR that new directional drilling techniques used by the oil industry allow for minimal surface disturbances — essentially bringing to life the Coen Brothers’ satirical “Clean Coal” commercial, but this time, it’s “clean oil drilling.”
Florida’s legislature can’t bend to the will of oil companies promising profit. The oil industry isn’t a self-policing operation, and even if safer oil-drilling techniques exist, allowing Texas companies in the western part of the Everglades not only undermines Florida’s natural resources, it also undermines the state’s integrity.
An undercurrent of Floridians’ existing fear of overdevelopment runs through the issue of oil drilling in the Everglades. Even if new technology is safer — which is a bold claim — residents who’ve sought peace and solitude along the banks of the Everglades don’t want to see the area overrun by oil companies. Add this, of course, to the reality of toxic gases possibly being leaked into nature and neighborhoods.
The U.S. doesn’t need the little amount of oil that Florida can offer. What we need is a longer-lasting solution — namely, less effort going toward developing clean-drilling techniques and more going toward discovering alternative energy sources.
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 3/17/2014 under the headline "Oil industry, keep your mitts off the Everglades"]
