By Jim Saunders ©2025 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Saying the Florida Department of Environmental Protection did not adequately consider the sensitive nature of the area, an administrative law judge Monday said the state should reject a permit to drill for oil near the Apalachicola River.
Judge Lawrence P. Stevenson issued a 53-page recommended order that sided with the environmental group Apalachicola Riverkeeper in the closely watched case.
Apalachicola Riverkeeper filed a challenge last year after the Department of Environmental Protection issued a draft permit for Louisiana-based Clearwater Land & Minerals Fla. to drill an exploratory well in an unincorporated part of Calhoun County, which is between Tallahassee and Panama City.
Stevenson wrote that the proposed site is within the 100-year floodplain of the Apalachicola River, is within a mile of two ponds that are hydrologically connected to the river and is surrounded by swamplands. He said the “DEP and Clearwater took an exceedingly narrow view of the scope of the project for purposes of environmental review, limiting it to the immediate location of the drilling pad on the site.”
“A spill would have catastrophic consequences due to the proximity of the well to nearby streams, wetlands and ponds,” Stevenson wrote.
The case has drawn attention, at least in part, because the state and federal governments have long taken steps to try to protect the river and Apalachicola Bay. They are part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system, which starts in northern Georgia, crosses into Alabama and ends in Apalachicola Bay in Franklin County.
During this year’s legislative session, the Florida House and Senate have moved forward with a proposal aimed at preventing oil drilling near the river and bay. The legislative chambers have not reached agreement on a final version of the bill (HB 1143).
Under administrative law, Stevenson’s recommended order Monday must go back to the Department of Environmental Protection for a final order.
The department in 2019 approved a permit for another company on the same site, but that company, Cholla Petroleum, did not end up drilling, Stevenson wrote.
In a document filed in February in the case, the department pointed to safeguards, such as berms at the site, that it said would prevent release of pollutants.
“From a broader perspective, the ‘lands involved,’ i.e. the area of the well pad and the parcel described in the application, are within the Apalachicola River basin,” the department document said. “However, given the location and redundant systems for retaining potential discharges of pollutants at the well pad, the lands involved have no special characteristics that might make them susceptible to pollution.”
Stevenson, however, took issue with such arguments. For example, he cited a rule about permitting in “sensitive areas.”
“DEP’s focus on the footprint of the site is understandable in the sense that the site is where the drilling will occur and is the only area over which Clearwater has control,” he wrote. “However, the quoted rule requires the applicant to ‘make every effort to minimize related impacts,’ presumably including impacts beyond the site itself. The rule does not require DEP to don blinkers and pretend that the ‘related impacts’ of the proposed permit cannot extend beyond the site.”
Stevenson also wrote that Clearwater “failed to establish the indicated likelihood of the presence of oil in such quantities as to warrant their exploration and extraction on a commercially profitable basis,” which is part of criteria under state law for issuing permits.
“It is also noted that DEP abdicated any duty it had to perform an independent assessment of the commercial prospects of the proposed permit during the permitting review, despite the plain language of the statute directing it to ‘give consideration to and be guided by’ that criterion,” the judge wrote.
While relatively unusual for Florida, companies have long drilled for oil around the Santa Rosa County community of Jay and in parts of Southwest Florida.
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