Lawrence,...Your comments about the unfairness of some of the environmentalists is well taken. The Panama City News Herald mentioned it in their article published Saturday, April 10th. Although it is not the article that I hoped to see (perhaps next Monday) it does mention the possibility of a Billion barrels of oil again. I am hopeful that a compromise deal is possible and everyone can support the search for oil within the Continental USA for National Security reasons if nothing else.
newsherald.com
Saturday, April 10, 1999
Judge rejects Coastal's
bid to drill wells
MATT MOORE
Business Editor
A Florida judge recommended that 12 permits sought by Apalachicola-based Coastal Petroleum Co. be denied because they were "incomplete."
State Division of Administrative Hearings Judge Larry Sartin issued the ruling late last month in Tallahassee.
Coastal, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bermuda-based Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals Ltd., filed applications more than two years ago with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to drill 12 oil wells along its 800,000-acre leasehold off the Gulf Coast of Florida.
The company's original request was denied, officials said, because DEP had demanded that Coastal Petroleum had to provide the state with "extensive additional information and studies." Coastal said it had already met the department's basic standards when it initially applied for the permits.
When DEP refused to issue the permits, Coastal demanded a hearing before an administrative law judge and claimed that DEP's additional demands were an "unadopted rule."
Sartin agreed, but found that DEP had "sustained the necessary heavy burden of proof" that was required to impose the additional requirements.
Sartin's recommendation was forwarded to DEP for consideration and final action.
Coastal said that if DEP adopted the court's recommendation, they would file an appeal in Florida's First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee.
The ruling was not related to Coastal's pursuit of a permit to drill an oil well off the coast of St. George Island in Franklin County. Coastal said its seismic surveys of the sea floor in that area have shown the possibility of at least a billion barrels of untapped crude could be between 12,000 and 18,000 feet below the sea floor there.
The move to drill there has prompted angry responses from a variety of people and groups who opposed any oil drilling there, including the Nature Conservancy, the Florida Audubon Society and Earthjustice.
State law forbade any offshore drilling in Florida waters in 1990, but Coastal, which has had the leaseholds since December 1944, was exempted from that law.
Oral arguments in that case are scheduled to begin May 12 in Tallahassee.
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