Oil drilling permit near Big Cypress denied by the state. Company will appeal, try again
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has rejected a permit application from a North Fort Myers company to drill an exploratory oil well north of Immokalee in Collier County, citing the potential for negative impacts on wildlife like the protected gopher tortoise and on water resources.
South Florida water managers and the local water and sewer district had warned that the project threatened drinking water supplies in the region, and environmentalists said that oil exploration in the area — part of the Big Cypress watershed and the greater Everglades — could harm protected species like the Florida panther, the eastern indigo snake and the rare ghost orchid, which are found in the region’s unique cypress swamps, marl prairies, hardwood hammocks and mangrove forests.
Trend Exploration will appeal the decision and try again for the permit, said company manager John M. Cheeseman. He said the location for the well remains the same, after it was moved previously to account for the presence of wetlands.
“We are not planning to drill within a thousand feet of wetlands like some have claimed; we moved our proposed well site because of that,” Cheeseman said. “And we did not find signs of any endangered species in the area after doing surveys this year. We did find gopher tortoise burrows and we said we’d move them as required by the state.”
The company applied for a permit to drill a directional well almost 12,000 feet down, or more than two miles, northwest of the Immokalee Regional Airport, according to documents submitted to the DEP earlier this year.
Regulators said in a letter to Cheeseman on Friday that the company failed to demonstrate that the benefits outweighed the adverse impacts of drilling at the proposed location.
“In addition, the application and supporting documentation do not sufficiently ensure that the exploration activities will cause no permanent adverse impact on the wildlife of the area, which is required for all projects in the Big Cypress Watershed,” DEP said in the denial notice.
Conservation groups celebrated the decision,
“Jubilation! The Trend oil application in Eastern Collier County and our Big Cypress Swamp watershed was just denied! We did it—again,” Karen Dwyer of the Naples-based Stonecrab Alliance wrote on the nonprofit’s Facebook page.
Among the reasons for the denial, DEP also said the proposed project location is near areas that are likely to be developed and improved “based on submittals, including conservation plans, by developers, local and regional growth management/planning authorities, transportation agencies and water/wastewater utilities that will serve ever increasing populations immigrating to Eastern Collier County,” according to the denial letter.
DEP also said the geological data provided by Trend Exploration was insufficient to determine if the well has any production potential. Additionally, the nearest drilling projects to the proposed well were dry holes and there’s been no nearby exploratory drilling in 40 years, DEP said.
During the application process, the South Florida Water Management District took issue with the risk of water scarcity and water contamination, asking Trend to draw water from the deeper Floridan Aquifer rather than shallow sources that supply Immokalee and surrounding areas, according to a letter sent to the DEP about the permit application in August.
The district also raised concerns about the casing of the well, a protection made of cement to keep the sides from caving in on themselves and to isolate surrounding fresh water reservoirs from the oil being produced.
Environmentalists said activity in the area would add to traffic on the roads around Big Cypress, increasing the threat to the endangered Florida panther.
The federally protected species remains extremely at risk of extinction, under pressure from habitat loss and population growth, which increases panthers’ chances of getting hit by cars on the state’s roads. Most Florida panthers found dead every year are killed in vehicle collisions, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. At least 26 have died so far this year, compared with 22 last year, 27 in 2019 and 30 the year before.
The Seminole Tribe also expressed concern about the drilling project, saying the area is of cultural significance. The Tribe asked the DEP for a survey to uncover possible human remains in the area.
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 2:54 PM.
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