An administrative law judge is considering allowing a permit to drill for oil in Northwest Florida’s Apalachicola River Basin. The site being considered is in rural Calhoun County, in the river basin’s floodplain – and the state Department of Environmental Protection supports the idea. But the basin is highly fragile. In the past, its struggles for survival have upended the economy of Franklin County and reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
The rest of the state and nation may have forgotten about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But they haven’t on the so-called “Forgotten Coast” – in places like Apalachicola and St. George Island that depend on seafood and tourism.
“Our livelihoods depend on clean water. And we know, we all know, that oil and water do not mix. We know that one accident, one spill, one flood event and it would be devastation for everything downriver and into our precious bay.”
That’s Xochitl Bervera of Water is Life Oysters, speaking on the steps of the Department of Environmental Protection’s headquarters in Tallahassee. She was surrounded by people holding signs reading “Kill the Drill.”
“We’ve seen it before," she said. "The people of the Gulf Coast know what can happen when you have accidents with oil.”
Naturalist Jack Rudloe of the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory was there, too, holding a large stuffed fish.
“The oysters have crashed, the shrimp have gone to hell," he said. "The populations of marine life since the oil spill with Deepwater Horizon has been a disaster.”
David Damon, the owner of JP Roberts Hurricane Shutters, reminded the crowd of what happened to local small businesses after the spill.
“Many businesses went under. Many businesses had to take out loans that they’re still paying back today, these many years later. We survived it because we’ve been around a long time and we were able to, but many couldn’t. Hundreds and hundreds of jobs depend on these businesses along the coast.”
A Louisiana-based company, Clearwater Land and Mineral LLC, applied for the permit roughly a year ago, and in April DEP announced that they planned to grant it. The permit was then challenged by Apalachicola Riverkeeper, a citizen group that contends the failure rate of wells drilled in Calhoun County and its neighbors is 100 percent – 70 dry holes out of 70 wells drilled.
Looming over the conflict is the shadow of further damage to the Apalachicola River Basin, which used to provide 90 percent of Florida’s oysters and 10 percent of the nation’s. But the bay is now being rehabilitated. It fell victim to the state’s so-called “water wars” with Georgia and Alabama, in which freshwater to Florida’s north was depleted before it crossed the state line. And after the Deepwater Horizon spill, people were worried the oil would go into the bay and damage the oysters, so they harvested too many, too young. The bay collapsed in 2012.
State Sen. Corey Simon, who represents the area, has fought to fund efforts to repopulate the bay with oysters. He opposes the drilling permit, calling the idea “unconscionable.”
“I think the folks that are looking to do this, the folks over at Clearwater Land and Mineral – they need to understand the impact. They need to understand that families are struggling in these areas. Both of these counties are fiscally constrained counties. And so, we can’t have anything at this point that is going to hurt their ability to come back and feed their families.”
The hole would be drilled in Calhoun County, northern neighbor of Franklin County. Calhoun lost its thriving timber industry to Hurricane Michael and supports the plan to drill.
A DEP spokeswoman said the agency couldn’t comment while the case is being heard. Calhoun County commissioners wouldn’t comment, either. But students from Cornerstone Learning Community wrote speeches and delivered them on the DEP steps.
“It threatens our drinking water. If we drill down to the aquifer, it could contaminate the drinking water for several counties in this region and destroy the cleanest water in the country” … “Apalach is very much a fishing and oyster town, and if the fish die and the oysters disappear, the town will also – 193 years of community washed away” … “And I love to swim, and I can’t swim in oil! So, what about us? What about our generation? We want to be on the river, too. So do your kids, and your kids’ kids.”
Those voices belong to Wyatt Simpson, Penny Hutchinson and Taylor Wiebler.
According to Apalachicola Riverkeeper Executive Director Susan Anderson, it could take two to six months for Judge Lawrence Stevenson to decide whether to allow the drilling permit to go forward.
