<
https://grist.org/energy/how-the-miccosukee-tribe-plans-to-stop-oil-drilling-in-the-everglades-once-and-for-all/>
"Within a thicket of the Big Cypress National Preserve, established a
half-century ago to protect the marshes and sloughs here that make up a vital
part of the Florida Everglades, a series of wells extracts oil from more than
two miles underground.
The oil field is situated deep within a pine forest of the preserve — the first
in the country — which channels more than 40 percent of the water flowing into
Everglades National Park and shelters iconic and imperiled species like the
fabled ghost orchid and Florida panther, the official state animal. The wells
penetrate thousands of feet beneath an underground aquifer, an important
drinking water source, and draw up oil from the so-called Sunniland trend, a
reserve stretching across southwest Florida from Miami to Fort Myers, although
most of the reserve is situated beneath Big Cypress.
For decades, oil production has endured in this corner of the fragile
Everglades, a watershed that spans much of the peninsula and is the focus of a
$21 billion federal and state restoration effort, one of the most ambitious in
human history. Big Cypress is among some 10 percent of federally protected
lands nationwide where the government owns the surface terrain while private
entities retain the mineral rights underneath.
“Big Cypress National Preserve is very sacred to us,” said Talbert Cypress,
elected chairman of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, a federally
recognized tribal nation located in the Everglades. “We have a lot of
ceremonial grounds that have been in Big Cypress National Preserve, burial
grounds, places where we gather our traditional medicine. So just seeing that
sort of damage in a place that really matters to us a lot, it’s sad to see it.”
Now the Miccosukee, longtime environmental stewards in Florida who notably
helped steer stringent water quality standards for their sacred “river of
grass,” have a plan for phasing out oil drilling within Big Cypress.
The tribe has joined with WildLandscapes International, a nonprofit land
conservation group, to engineer a multimillion-dollar deal with the Collier
family, which owns the vast majority of the mineral rights beneath the
preserve. If the agreement is finalized, the family would give up the mineral
rights associated with some 465,000 acres to the federal government."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/good-news-global-life-expectancy-domestic-violence-australia-emissions-china/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
