TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - This week marks the six-month anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon spill off the Gulf Coast of Florida, and a citizen group is petitioning for constitutional amendment banning oil drilling near the state's beaches to help make sure it doesn't happen again. The group, Save Our Seas, Beaches and Shores, led by the Florida Wildlife Federation and its allies, wants an amendment on the 2012 ballot that would stop drilling within 10 miles on the Gulf Coast and within three miles on the Atlantic Coast.

The new group's chairman and president of the Florida Wildlife Federation, Manley Fuller, says they tried to get the legislature to place a drilling ban amendment on the ballot during its special session this summer.

"Citizens say they don't want oil drilling in Florida, so they've started this new drive. We tried to get the legislature to do it; this is exactly what we tried to get them to do, and they refused to do it. Now we're having to take matters into our own hands."

Fuller says state law currently prohibits drilling near shore, but that could change at any time. He says it was a close call the last two legislative sessions, with legislators trying to piggyback drilling legislation on 11th-hour bills.

"The legislature was actively considering allowing oil drilling as close as three miles to Florida, reversing 30 years of bi-partisan policy. We don't want that to be an option. The only way we can make it not be an option is to place it in the constitution."

Fuller says the efforts to allow drilling happened before the Deepwater Horizon spill, and legislators have assured him they will not try to pass such legislation this session. He says it's critical to Florida's environment, ecosystem and economy that drilling be kept off Florida beaches.

"We want to protect our coastal environment, and our coastal environment is linked to our coastal economy, which is huge in Florida. We had a spill way out in the ocean; it's still having some effects. What if we had an accident right off the shore of Florida? That could be catastrophic."

Prohibiting drilling in Florida waters also would help protect the state's $50 billion a year tourist industry, Fuller adds.

The organization needs volunteers to collect 700,000 voter signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. They will kick off the effort at the polls on Election Day, Nov. 2, and follow up with coastal cleanups and other community events around the state.

More information is available at www.sosbs.org.




get more stories like this via email

Conservation groups are rejoicing over the decision Friday by the Biden administration to reject a proposed mining road in Alaska.

The 211-mile Ambler Road would have sliced through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, severing the migration route for a Western Arctic Caribou herd.

Alex Johnson, interior Alaska director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said it was important for the feds to take a stand in Alaska so mining interests do not start eyeing other national parks.

"This is a very expensive, destructive and just highly speculative project that does not in any way support our clean energy goals as a country," Johnson contended. "And ultimately would permanently threaten the health and well-being of local communities and the tribes."

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski slammed the decision, warning it could limit jobs and tax revenues for Alaska by preventing exploration for minerals she said are important to national security, like copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.

Jayme Dittmar, a photographer and filmmaker from Fairbanks, said the road would have been very disruptive to the 66 Native American villages along the proposed route.

"That'd be 168 trucks passing through close vicinity to the villages," Dittmar pointed out. "There would be hundreds of bridges built. It would dismantle a subsistence livelihood that's been in place for thousands and thousands of years."

The road was seen as a negative for tourism to the Brooks Range area. According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Californians make up 9% of visitors to Alaska.

Arizona conservation groups and sportsmen alike say they're pleased the Bureau of Land Management will now recognize conservation as an integral part of public lands management.

The agency's new rule puts protecting the environment on par with other land-use priorities.

Scott Garlid, executive director of the Arizona Wildlife Federation, said historically the BLM has done what he termed a "pretty good job," not only managing about 12 million acres of public lands in Arizona, but also protecting natural resources.

"They've got a tough job," Garlid acknowledged. "I think this rule helps make their job a little bit easier because it gives them some tools to balance those different demands on the 12 million acres that they manage."

Garlid predicted the rule will raise what he terms "harder-to-quantify conservation values" to the same level of importance as more extractive land uses like oil and gas exploration and mining. He thinks most Arizonans will recognize the new rule as a positive. A solid majority of Arizona voters across party lines say they are conservationists and use public lands for recreation.

To Garlid, the rule makes it clear the BLM is recognizing certain parts of federal lands, in Arizona and around the West, have been degraded. He contended restoration leases will be a good tool, allowing the BLM to lease acres to groups specifically to improve the conditions on a given landscape. He noted opponents of the new rule might see the leases as a way to "lock up" land but he argued it is not true.

"One example could be a nonprofit, like the Arizona Wildlife Federation," Garlid pointed out. "We could get a conservation lease from the Bureau of Land Management to do riparian restoration work, or work to remove invasive species along a creek bank."

According to the BLM, while a restoration or mitigation lease is in place, casual uses of the leased lands like recreation, hunting, fishing and research activities would generally continue.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


get more stories like this via email