[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11850-11851]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          FLORIDA'S EVERGLADES

  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I am just busting out with ideas I wish 
to discuss with the Senate. Since we don't have any other Senators 
standing in line, I will share where I have been today and what is of 
urgency for the environmental community and particularly the 
Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Government.
  We have been spending hundreds of billions of dollars to restore the 
Florida Everglades. This is a natural resource that is unique in all of 
the world, and its environmental effects are felt far beyond Florida 
and the United States--indeed, on the entire planet. It is a source of 
water that starts southwest of Orlando in a little creek called Shingle 
Creek and flows south through the Kissimmee chain of lakes, into the 
Kissimmee River, into Lake Okeechobee, the big lake in southern 
Florida. From there the water then flows further to the south in what 
is termed the River of Grass--the Florida Everglades. From there it 
moves very slowly through all of that grass, and it eventually ends up 
on the southern tip of the peninsula in Florida Bay by the Florida Keys 
or to the southwest of Florida, coming out through what is an area 
known as the Shark River Slough into the Gulf of Mexico. It is a unique 
natural resource.
  I once had Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairman of the environment 
committee, down there.
  We travel in the Everglades in an airboat since there is little depth 
to the water. Of course, it is all watered grass. You skim across the 
top of the water in an airboat propelled by a big airplane propeller.
  As we took Senator Boxer across this River of Grass, in the midst of 
what looked like a meadow in front of the airboat, suddenly she saw a 
doe and her fawn going through the meadow. Only this time they were 
obviously not in a meadow; they were in water, and they were splashing 
in the water as they leapt away from the airboat.
  It is a unique environmental, ecological treasure with so many 
endangered species there, and it is a discussion for another day, how 
invasive species are upsetting the ecological balance, such as the 
imported Burmese python, which can get up to 20 feet long. Indeed, one 
that was 18 feet 8 inches was caught 6 months ago. Of course, they are 
at the top of the food chain. They attack alligators. The fur-bearing 
animals in the Everglades have diminished in population because they 
are being consumed by these beasts that have a ravenous appetite. But 
that is a subject for another day.
  Hundreds of billions of dollars has been spent to restore it, 
restoring it to correct a mistake of mankind over the course of the 
last century when, after the huge hurricane in the 1920s that

[[Page 11851]]

drowned 2,000 people in the Lake Okeechobee area, the whole idea was 
flood control: When it floods, get the water off the land. Send it to 
tidewater--the Atlantic in the east, the Gulf of Mexico in the west. 
But that messed around with Mother Nature, and as a result the whole of 
the Everglades started to dry up.
  Fortunately, a lot of forward-thinking people--and I am merely a 
steward who has come along at the right time, at the right place--have 
continued this effort--the Corps of Engineers, the EPA, so many of the 
agencies of government, Cabinet Secretaries, such as Ken Salazar at the 
Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture Secretary. It 
goes on and on. The effort as a 50/50 partnership in funding this 
restoration has been partnered by the State of Florida and the U.S. 
Government, and it continues.
  Alas, there is now oil drilling in the Everglades. The subject of 
today's meeting in Fort Myers, FL, was to gather a very courageous 
county commission from Collier County, their chairman, and 
representatives of the community, to come in to educate me on the 
aspects of drilling and the recent brouhaha between the State 
environmental agency and the Texas wildcatter, the Dan A. Hughes 
Company; they started fracking without the proper permits and without 
revealing the mechanism and the material they were using to frack.
  Of course, most people have heard of fracking, but we hear of it in 
terms of North Dakota or Oklahoma or Texas or Pennsylvania. But Florida 
is not built on that kind of substrate where they are going in and 
breaking up that rock in the fracking to release oil and natural gas, 
which has now made us such a tremendous producer of both of those in 
the United States. No, Florida is on a different type of substrate. It 
is built on a honeycomb of limestone that supports the surface by it 
being filled with freshwater. It is not those solid rocks where the 
fracking for oil and gas is being done and with the high jets with 
chemicals breaking up that rock to release the natural gas. No, this is 
porous limestone formed millions of years ago by the shelled critters 
that ultimately fossilized. It is this honeycomb being supported by 
freshwater that is the substructure of the State of Florida. So we 
don't have any idea what this fracking is going to do not only to the 
quality of the water but also to the very support structure for the 
State.
  Now, lo and behold, there are attempts for permits to drill in the 
250,000-acre Big Cypress Federal preserve, which is part of the 
Everglades but is adjacent to the Everglades National Park. Therefore, 
it is time for the EPA of the Federal Government to get involved. It is 
time to question their authority in law as to what, after this kind of 
drilling is done to inject all of that stuff that is left over back 
down into this substrate of freshwater--what is that going to do under 
the Clean Water Act? What is it that could contaminate the source of 
drinking water? What is it going to do to the structure that upholds 
the surface of the State of Florida? And very importantly, since it is 
colocated right next to Everglades National Park and since it is a part 
of the area generally known as the Everglades, what is it going to do 
to the flora and fauna--in other words, all of that delicate ecosystem 
balance of the critters and the plants? What is it going to do to the 
very area that we are spending hundreds of billions of State taxpayer 
and Federal taxpayer money to restore? These are very legitimate 
questions.
  Years ago the Collier family was very generous. They gave, fee simple 
to the U.S. Government, what is today the Big Cypress preserve. They 
retained the mineral rights. It was clearly their right to do so, and 
it was very generous of them to donate the property.
  We have a national park ranger manager who manages that preserve. Now 
we have to look at what are the serious consequences of trying to 
convert those mineral rights that were reserved into drilling. The most 
immediate is that instead of seismic testing, another kind of vibration 
testing is expected to be done with thousands of tests in the Big 
Cypress Preserve. It is called thumping.
  A vehicle comes in and apparently drops things onto the surface to 
create something--instead of seismic testing where an explosion is let 
off, to send down vibrations--and these triangulations, since they are 
doing thousands of these, would determine if there is oil there. Thus, 
another question that arises is, What is the environmental effect?
  We definitely have a reason for the EPA, as an independent agency, 
for the Department of the Interior, which has jurisdiction over things 
such as U.S. Fish & Wildlife, U.S. Park Service, to get involved in 
this process and make some determinations, and if the answer is that 
there is not sufficient authority in law, to address it so that we can 
address it here as a matter of legislating law.
  I wanted to make the Senate aware of this particular potential threat 
to the Florida Everglades.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________