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Environmental committee gives fracking ban bill the all clear

Jesse Hollett
Posted 3/29/17

TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Senate backtracked on years of traditional support of the oil and natural gas industries last week and unanimously slid a bill aimed at a statewide oil and natural gas …

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Environmental committee gives fracking ban bill the all clear


Posted

TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Senate backtracked on years of traditional support of the oil and natural gas industries last week and unanimously slid a bill aimed at a statewide oil and natural gas ‘fracking’ ban through its first committee.

The bill prohibits any kind of “advanced well stimulation treatment” methods, specifically hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking. The bill also specifically bars acid fracturing and matrix acidizing.

The process involves forcefully injecting water, along with dozens of harmful chemicals, into rock formations to release the natural gas and oil reserves underground.

The relatively brief bill, Senate Bill 442, will now proceed to its second committee, the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Environment and Natural Resources, after its initial triumph in the Environmental Preservation and Conservation committee. The companion House Bill is HB 451.

Last week was a wealth of precedent policy reversals for the Florida Senate. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dana Young, R-Tampa, reversed her opposition to a fracking ban last year. She proposed the bill with 16 other senators from both parties.

But it’s unclear the fate of the bill as it matures further.

Its first committee was almost entirely comprised of co-sponsors. This is not necessarily the case in its next committee. Despite the bill already having a unanimous vote on this account, opposition and supporters still arrived en masse to voice their opinions.

Opposition groups in attendance. In opposition at its committee hearing last March 7 in Tallahassee was ExxonMobil, the Florida Petroleum Council, the Florida Chamber, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as well as representatives from think tanks and private interest lawyers.

They said by banning fracking in the state, that Florida would be departing from every other state in the nation in restrictive regulation on the industry. And if the bill continued to sail through legislature and eventually got the greenlight from the Governor, that the bill would make Florida a “lightning rod of litigation” under the Bert J. Harris Private Property Rights Protection Act of 1995.

“This bill would eliminate the right of landowners to practicably extract those minerals, which would result in a taking,” said Attorney Jake Kramer with Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson, which represents Collier Resources, the largest private mineral company in South Florida. “Large landowners won’t have a choice they’ll be forced to bring dozens of high profile and expensive takings lawsuits against the states.”

Senator Gary Farmer Jr., D-Broward, challenged him. He said that of the 32 cities in counties that have already banned the practice, not a single successful lawsuit has been brought up against them.

“I think it’s an encouraging thing for our society and our democracy to see how views evolve on issues,” Farmer said. “And it isn’t always the case that special interests groups can get there way on an issue, and sometimes when the people speak, we listen. It wasn’t too long ago that bills were passed by this legislature making secret the chemicals used in fracking.”

Opponents also attempted to reinforce market studies that show fracking has little to no determinable health detriments. Supporters countered.

“We can’t risk our rivers lakes and streams and drinking water to a drilling practice that has already polluted water ways all across the country,” said Jennifer Rubiello, director for the advocacy group Environment Florida. “From Keystone Heights to Union County down to Zephyrhills and certainly Miami-Dade – folks all across the state don’t want fracking here and want to make sure our communities and water are protected against it.”

Because the Floridan Aquifer is separated from ground water by, among others, a thick layer of limestone, Young argues the fracking is incompatible with the state. Limestone is a porous rock that can allow liquid to drip down into the aquifer. Many in attendance last Tuesday believed the fluid used in fracking could also leak down into the aquifer.

“It is fragile, it is porous,” Young said. “Florida is unique, Florida is special – and we do not have to be just like every other state in the nation.”

Florida currently has 64 active producer wells in Florida. Florida's natural gas production peaked in the late 1970s, and by 2009, it had fallen to a small fraction of earlier production. Only a small amount of Florida's limited natural gas production is marketed and sold, the rest is used for energy production.

In closing, Young challenged the threats of litigation.

“I will just remind those that do make a living bringing those lawsuits that we are not foreclosing mineral rights and the ability for property owners to access them,” Young said. “We are not doing anything to stop traditional oil and gas drilling operations that have taken place in Florida for many years, we are simply foreclosing one method that is incompatible with the geography of our state.”

Keystone Heights Mayor Tony Brown has publicly voiced opposition of fracking on multiple occasions.

“Personally, I don’t want fracking because we’ve worked so hard to restore our lakes and, from what I’ve read, the way they drill into the aquifer would affect lake levels,” Brown told Clay Today in a previous interview.

Fracking has been a very limited practice in Florida so far. In December 2013, Texas-based Dan A. Hughes Co. used an acid-related fracking technique in Collier County near the Everglades. That was the first time the technique had been used in Florida and many of that the county’s residents and leaders were outraged.