Fracking fears surface in North Florida
- Cholla Petroleum is seeking state permits to begin seismic testing in Gulf and Calhoun counties.
- The testing could begin in December and wrap by February
- The testing could lead to exploratory drilling and eventual production
- Consultants say Florida's porous geology doesn't require fracking to extract oil and gas
A Texas oil company’s plan to search for oil and gas in North Florida is stoking fears that drilling and possibly even fracking could come to areas around the fragile Apalachicola and Chipola rivers.
Cholla Petroleum, a family-owned oil and gas company based in Dallas, Texas, is seeking state permits to begin seismic testing using small underground charges as soon as December on private land in Calhoun and Gulf counties in a possible prelude to future drilling.
It’s an exploratory phase only. No permits have been issued. And it’s far too early to know whether production, let alone fracking, will ever happen.
But the prospects of oil production just north of Apalachicola Bay has led to apprehension among some residents, environmental groups and elected officials. They're worried testing could lead to drilling, which could bring further harm to a coast that’s teetered on the edge of collapse for years.
“I’d just as soon they stay in Texas,” said Leon Morris after a morning of fishing on the Dead Lakes, a hidden-away section of the Chipola River speckled with old Cypress stumps and located within the testing area. “I kind of like things the way they are. And it’s going to change if you come in here and start drilling.”
Cholla's applications prompted Rep. Gwen Graham, D-Tallahassee, to send letters to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection saying oil and gas production in general, and fracking in particular, pose “a great threat” because of risks including water contamination. She said fracking and its use of mass quantities of water “seem incompatible” with Florida’s most important industries, agriculture and tourism.
“Our region knows all too well the harm an environmental disaster can cause,” Graham wrote. “The BP oil spill inflicted tremendous harm on our economy, and the Apalachicola Bay’s ecology has been under attack for years. I’m fighting in Congress to protect North Florida’s springs and oceans — and worry fracking presents yet another threat to our North Florida way of life.”
But David Mica, executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council, said the oil and gas industry has had an excellent environmental track record since oil was discovered in 1943 in the Sunniland Trend in South Florida. He said the testing amounts to a geological sonogram or MRI.
“Oil and gas activity creates the quality of life that we have in the United States,” he said. “We can produce jobs, become less dependent on foreign sources of oil and gas and we can produce that energy right here at home. It’s irresponsible to have concerns about basic science research because there’s so much to be gained from it – not just oil and gas but for all of our understanding of where we live.”
Fueling the fears are GOP-backed bills moving through the Legislature that would create a regulatory framework for fracking in Florida. The controversial drilling technique is actually legal now, but it’s believed to have occurred only once in the state near the Everglades. Democrats, meanwhile, are offering bills that would ban fracking, though similar measures have gotten little traction in the past.
The fracking legislation comes at a time of renewed interest in oil and gas exploration in Florida. Energy companies are hoping to conduct seismic testing in the Big Cypress National Preserve and exploratory drilling in the Everglades.
'Minimal' impacts from seismic testing
Cholla (pronounced choy-uh) Petroleum, named after a cactus found in the southwest, wants sign-off from the DEP and other agencies to begin testing in a swath of land stretching from about 17 miles south of Blountstown in Calhoun County to immediately north of Wewahitchka in coastal Gulf County. Roughly a third of the testing area consists of wetlands, with the rest uplands, just west of the Apalachicola River.
All of the land is in private hands, with most of it held by the Neal Land & Timber Company in Blountstown. The business has given Cholla permission to access about 85 percent of the surface and below-ground minerals within the project area, and consultants say remaining permissions from land owners will be in hand before field work begins.
Cholla, working with Dawson Geophysical Company of Midland, Texas, plans to drill shot holes 100 feet deep in about 1,000 spots along crisscrossing lines totaling 63 miles. Crews will drop small explosive charges into the holes and detonate them one at a time.
The explosions send acoustic waves into rock layers, faults and folds deep underground, which bounce back to the surface, where they’re recorded by more than 6,000 receivers called geophones. The data is analyzed to find potential oil and gas prospects.
Representatives from Lampl Herbert, a Tallahassee consulting firm working with Cholla, said the testing is safe, with minimal and only temporary impacts to the environment and wildlife. The firm has submitted detailed plans to avoid and protect wildlife and cultural resources during the testing. And observers approved by DEP will monitor the testing to make sure it complies with regulations.
After the testing, crews will fill in the holes and clean up the area. It’s a simple process consisting mostly of pulling up stakes and raking out and repairing ruts.
“After a couple of rainfalls, it’s unlikely that you’d notice there had been testing there,” said Linda Lampl, president and CEO of the consulting firm.
'Potential for contamination'
But others are unconvinced the testing won’t lead to wildlife disturbances and possible damage to the Floridan Aquifer, the source of the state’s drinking water. Craig Diamond, president of the Apalachicola Bay and Riverkeeper board, said the consultants have asserted all of the testing will be done within the shallow aquifer.
“They’ve given us some assurances that the drilling and the blasting itself will not result in any cross-contamination between the (shallow) aquifer and the underlying ground water,” he said. “They’re telling us that, but I don’t have the greatest confidence in it.”
Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association, said seismic testing poses a number of risks, including the spread of invasive plant species by off-road vehicles and the contamination of water supplies.
“You’re putting chemical explosives underground and setting them off,” he said. “There’s always strong potential for contamination of both underground water supplies and surface water supplies.”
Dee Ann Miller, a spokeswoman for DEP, said the testing is beneficial in defining targets for subsequent exploratory drilling.
“Refining drilling targets with geophysical data greatly reduces overall surface impacts by reducing the number of exploratory wells necessary to discover new oil and gas fields,” she said.
'No indication' fracking will occur
Scientists have reason to believe oil and gas may be located Gulf and Calhoun counties based on logs from exploratory wells drilled in the area between the 1940s and late 1980s. A basin located 15,000 feet underground appears similar to areas in Santa Rosa and Escambia counties that produce significant amounts of oil from the Smackover formation.
If data from the seismic testing is promising, Cholla would come back to conduct exploratory drilling, the consulting firm said. If oil and gas is found, the company would almost certainly begin drilling in earnest. Exploratory drilling and actual production would require new rounds of permit applications and reviews and approvals from DEP.
Cholla, which according to media reports has fracked wells in Texas, hasn’t signaled whether it would do the same thing in Florida. But the company hasn’t ruled it out, either. Consultants suggested it was unlikely, in part because the state’s porous geology doesn’t require fracking to extract oil and gas.
“It’s premature to even talk about drilling a well,” Lampl said. “And the main reason is that you don’t know where you’re going until you start getting that data. (But) there’s been no indication that it would be anything other than conventional drilling.”
Fracking has become a common practice in the United States — more than 1 million wells have been hydraulically fractured to extract oil and gas. But it’s generated controversy because of concerns over pollution, groundwater contamination and health problems. The process involves the injection of mass quantities of water along with chemicals and sand under immense pressures to fracture rock formations deep underground.
'We just don't need it'
Cholla’s exploration for oil and gas has prompted a new round of debate over the safety of fracking and whether it should ever happen again in Florida.
Dr. Ron Saff, a Tallahassee allergist and member of Physicians for Social Justice, and others have been appearing before county commissions to ask them to pass their own fracking bans.
“Fracking requires hundreds of chemicals, dozens of which are carcinogens and are used to lubricate the drill bit as it bores deep down into the earth’s surface,” he said. “The oil companies state that fracking will bring some jobs. They are correct. Grave diggers, morticians, funeral-home directors and coffin makers will likely see some job growth.”
Others say it’s perfectly safe. Roger Williams, a retired cable-television worker who lives in Gulf County, has firsthand experience with the drilling technique — an energy company has been fracking for natural gas on his family’s farmland in West Virginia since 2008, paying him royalties along the way.
“I wouldn’t care if they fracked here because no one has ever proven that fracking is the cause of any damage to anyone’s wells,” he said. “That was the whole problem in the beginning -- people were claiming that their water wells were being tainted by fracking. But it’s untrue. After studies were done, it showed that maybe two wells out of a thousand were actually tainted by fracking.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft report in June finding no widespread, systematic impacts to drinking-water supplies from fracking. The agency found instances where well integrity and waste-water management related to fracking did affect drinking water, but the report says they were comparatively small in number. The EPA noted, however, a number of risks to water supplies from fracking, including possible spills of fracking fluids and waste water.
Dan Tonsmeire, the Apalachicola riverkeeper, said he opposes oil and gas production in the area in part because of major spills and accidents that have occurred over the years, from the Deepwater Horizon disaster to mishaps in Yellowstone National Park and Alaska.
“Everywhere they’re working is a mess,” he said. “And they often want to leave a mess behind. And the people who live in these communities, they’re the ones left with the aftermath. People are still suffering from these oil companies making these huge mistakes. And I don’t want that to happen here again. We just don’t need it.”
Oil and gas production in Florida
The state has two areas that have produced oil and gas for decades through conventional drilling: the Sunniland Trend, located in Collier, Hendry, Lee and Miami-Dade counties, and the Jay Field, located in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. The state has produced roughly 600 million barrels — about 25 billion gallons — since 1943. Production peaked in the late 1970s and has been on a general decline since then.