Fracking in Florida sanctuary? Environmental agency won't say for sure. Only fined $25,000.

[madfloridian]

Last edited Tue Apr 22, 2014, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

From the Tampa Bay Times this week.

Oil company drilling in sanctuary fined $25,000 for violation that could be fracking

The Texas company that stirred controversy by applying to drill for oil in Florida panther habitat was doing more with one of its wells than what its state permit allowed.

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

.....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."

That matches the dictionary definition of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking: "the forcing open of fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high pressure, especially to extract oil or gas." Florida Petroleum Council executive director David Mica said it may mean Hughes was fracking, or it could mean it used one of several similar procedures.

I didn't even know there was oil drilling going on in Florida. Guess I am very naive.

Corkscrew Swamp is located near Naples, Florida.

There's a whole lot going on in Florida in secret ways right now. One Tampa home builder did not disclose until closing that drilling rights beneath the homes had been sold already.

Home builder grabs drilling rights beneath thousands of Tampa Bay homes

But in January, when the young parents cracked open their closing papers, they noticed an alarming clause. Their home builder had quietly signed away the rights to the land beneath their home to its own energy company. It now had free rein deep below the surface to drill, mine or explore.

Selling underground mineral rights has long been big business in the oil- and gas-rich boomtowns of Texas, North Dakota and beyond.

But homeowners here might be surprised to learn that they, too, could be part of the prospecting. A Tampa Bay Times analysis found that D.R. Horton, the nation's largest home builder, has pocketed the rights beneath more than 2,500 Tampa Bay homesites, whether the homeowner realizes it or not.

I believe the home builder has made some offers to back off since this was publicized. But it makes me wonder what else is going on secretly in this state.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

[madfloridian]

1. Makes me wonder where else this is going on in secret.

How many other homebuilders are waiting until closing time to inform that oil rights have already been sold.