ALEXIS MEYER of the Sierra Club, speaks at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Big Cypress Swamp Advisory Committee meeting at the Collier County Commission Chambers (March 31, 2014)
BIG CAT 'FIGHT' ERUPTS OVER GOLDEN GATE ESTATES DRILLING
The boos started almost immediately.
From the podium at the front of Golden Gate Community Center, Darrell Land, panther team leader for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee, told the rowdy crowd of about 225 what they didn’t want to hear: there was no evidence oil drilling hurt Florida panthers.
Since last May, the issue has stirred the ire of local environmental groups who view the well as detrimental to aquifers and sensitive habitat. And to the big cats.
The well-being of the state’s remaining 100-160 panthers has been a rallying cry for oil drilling opponents. They state the proposed well will disrupt the endangered cat’s last remaining habitat, through everything from noise and lights to heavy truck traffic.
They believe more study is needed to determine what effects drilling will have on panthers.
“This one well is not going to destroy the species but we want to know what happens if there are 50 wells,” said Alexis Meyer, organizing representative for the Florida Panther campaign for the Sierra Club. “Lots of people are saying that oil drilling is not going to impact panthers and that’s fine, but we’d like to see more studies.”
Telemetry data gathered from the roughly 40 panthers with radio tracking collars shows the animals frequently travel close to ongoing oil operations.
A big question for panther researchers is why expend research funds?
“Have we actually done a study to see if there’s an impact? No,” Land said. “Should we spend scarce research dollars to prove something we can already prove?”
Golden Gates Estate resident Thomas Mosher, along with activist organization Preserve Our Paradise and the Fort Lauderdale-based South Florida Wildlands Association, filed a formal protest with the state and requested a hearing.
Matthew Schwartz, executive director of SFWLA, said he wants experts to draw a distinction between production wells — the ones that actually pump out oil reserves — and exploratory wells, which are the ones determining whether there’s enough oil to produce.
Exploratory wells produce lighter noise and activity than production wells and haven’t been studied by researchers because they’re short-lived projects.
“We are talking about going into an area that has never had drilling and setting up an operation. We need to look at the cumulative impacts of drilling. It’s not just this oil well.”
