While some are just talking about whether or not fracking in Florida is a good idea (it's not), and legislators debate the issue, apparently an oil company from Texas has just gone ahead and done it here anyway, regardless of what anyone wants or thinks. Can we count on our governor and lawmakers to hold them accountable?
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Friday afternoon revealed that it had fined the Dan A. Hughes Co. $25,000 for violating its permit. The violation involves using a process that sounds like fracking — although the word "fracking" appears nowhere in either Friday's DEP news release or the legal paperwork about the fine from 10 days earlier.
Instead, the 12-page consent order, dated April 8, says DEP officials became concerned about a "workover operation" that the Texas company launched without DEP permission in late December 2013. The well site is on an island surrounded by the National Audubon Society's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a major nesting site for wood storks. DEP officials told Hughes to stop right away.
Determining exactly what the company did is difficult because the DEP censored that part of the order, labeling it "a confidential trade secret."
However, the DEP news release says Hughes "proposed an enhanced extraction procedure that had not previously been used in Florida. The company proposed to inject a dissolving solution at sufficient pressure to achieve some openings in the oil-bearing rock formation that would be propped open with sand in pursuit of enhancing oil production."
As the Times article states, this is pretty much the definition of hydraulic fracturing, whether those documents use the term or not. Still, the DEP merely fined them, and apparently have moved along:
DEP officials would say little about the order and did not respond to a reporter's request to interview Ed Garrett, who heads up the oil and gas permit program. Hughes officials did not return repeated calls.
Imagine that?
That may not be the end of it though, as the DEP and Hughes no doubt hoped. The Collier County Board of Commissioners, where other drilling is proposed, are now asking the state to revoke their drilling permit:
The commissioners voted to ask the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to revoke the Dan A. Hughes Co.'s permit to drill at Hogan Island, southwest of Lake Trafford, following the public disclosure last week about the company performing an "enhanced extraction procedure" akin to fracking.
The requested changes will include, withdrawal of the company's permit, or increased oversight of drilling operations in Collier and greater communication with local authorities about regulatory actions.
"They simply have to step up and listen to what we're telling them and what the public is telling them, and there isn't much of a difference between the two," said Commissioner Tim Nance at the meeting.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the company said it is fully in compliance with the spirit and letter of the law, and the consent order was the result of a disagreement over interpretation with DEP.
Just a disagreement? As in we choose not to call it fracking, but if you call it fracking, we're in disagreement? That pretty much sounds about right, considering they merely got a fine and no one's talking about it further.
If the company's permit isn't revoked, what's to stop them, and others, from doing it again? After all, a $25,000 fine to a big oil company who profits nicely in addition to the subsidies we provide is merely chump change.
Profit will outweigh any fine as just a cost of doing business.
You can sign a petition here from Progress Florida, demanding that Gov. Scott’s hand-picked DEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard revoke the permit of Hughes Co.
