Conservation groups disagree with the National Park Service over the extent of restoration work done after oil exploration at Big Cypress/NPS file

National Park Service officials are happy with restoration of areas in Big Cypress National Preserve damaged by Burnett Oil Co.'s exploration for oil reserves beneath the marl prairie, but conservation groups say lasting damage has been done in an area eligible for wilderness designation.

While the company didn't fully meet the requirements laid out in the permit it received to search for oil, the Park Service last month proposed to let Burnett Oil work on restoration in another area of the preserve as compensation for any damage to the hydrology in the exploration area. That option was included among the nearly 48 mitigation requirements the company agreed to in order to obtain the permit.

Although oil drilling is prohibited in most units of the National Park System, at Big Cypress oil and gas exploration and production is permitted as the federal government only owns the surface rights to Big Cypress while the mineral rights are privately owned.

Burnett Oil performed exploration in the preserve during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 dry seasons. Under its permit, damage was to be erased on a daily basis with crews following behind heavy equipment and physically smoothing out soils to natural gradients.

Although on-the-ground damage was clearly visible in early 2020, Big Cypress officials said Burnett lived up to most of the permit requirements. In early November, the Park Service added that too much time had transpired for Burnett to complete the restoration and mitigation work as originally required.

"The NPS does not have any concerns with the progress of the reclamation," Joshua Boles, chief of interpretation and education at Big Cypress, told the Traveler in an email Tuesday. 

In March 2020 the Traveler visited a section of the preserve where the exploration had been conducted and found scars across the landscape. Twenty or more feet wide in places, and running roughly 100 miles, these were the footprints of oil exploration conducted with vibroseis vehicles that, weighing up to 30 tons, literally send shockwaves through the ground.

Some sections of these “seismic lines” were regaining their vegetative cover during the visit, though others were coursed with compressed troughs unnaturally holding water; certain sites were practically devoid of vegetation despite the preserve’s subtropical climate and highly diverse botanical collection.

Damage to Big Cypress's landscape was visible two years after oil exploration started in the preserve/Kurt Repanshek file

Despite such telltale signs of the exploration, Boles said "the NPS has no concerns over hydrologic impacts. The reclamation efforts restored the topography to less than 3” of elevation change."

At the Natural Resource Defense Council, Alison Kelly took exception to the Park Service's evaluation of the reclamation work.

"We disagree that the oil exploration activities that damaged wetlands in the preserve do not have hydrologic impacts. The oil company was supposed to re-grade the seismic lines created by its vibroseis vehicles to the topography that existed prior to impact, consistent with the elevation in adjacent undisturbed wetlands, but is now only being required to restore topography within 3 inches," Kelly, a senior lands attorney, said in an email Tuesday. "This difference in elevation could lead to changes in hydrology in the preserve. Our experts continue to opine that long‐term soil, hydrologic, and vegetation damage as a result of Burnett Oil Company’s oil hunt in Big Cypress persists."

Melissa Abdo at the National Parks Conservation Association agreed with NRDC's assessment, and also pointed out that the Park Service has a great responsibility to see that the ruts and other damage from the exploration work are fully restored.

"Not only are we concerned with the need for Burnett Oil to provide mitigation for the loss of wetland functions that properly accounts for time lag, risk, and damage to endangered species habitat, but we are also concerned that NPS should be prioritizing full and complete restoration of the damaged area because it is all within eligible wilderness of the preserve," said Abdo, who heads NPCA's Sun Coast office. "NPS Wilderness policy applies to all of the seismic-damaged lands (given that they are all within eligible wilderness: see in particular sections 6.3.1, 6.3.2, 6.3.4.3, 6.3.6.2, 6.3.7 of the linked policy).

"The responsibility of NPS to enforce restoration of these areas given their standing as eligible wilderness – which must be treated to the same standard as wilderness until such time that Congress takes action - is higher than it would be than if the areas are not characterized as wilderness," she continued. "Restoration could and should include replanting of the preserve’s namesake cypress trees within the seismic-damaged areas, and should include proper monitoring to ensure the successful growth of replanted trees."

But the Park Service's position is that if Burnett Oil were required to go back into the exploration area to fully restore the landscape it impacted, that work would "create impacts to mature, native, wetland vegetation such as cypress trees in order to access the sites and restore soil contours because of substantial vegetative recovery along the old ORV trails identified as restoration candidates."

John Meyer, an outside consultant for NRDC who has surveyed the exploration damage, said very little reclamation work was done by Burnett Oil during the first two dry seasons following exploration.

"Besides setting everything back two years, soils displaced by rutting were subject to desiccation in the dry season and erosion during the wet season, both of which reduced the amount of sediment available when it came time to rake it back into the ruts," he wrote in an email. "Dispersal of sediment over that time made it more difficult to reclaim and likely caused additional impacts to adjacent undisturbed wetlands. Insufficient 'spoil' material to back-fill the ruts resulted in lower elevations in reclaimed areas. We documented elevation changes of up to 7" in the limited sampling we conducted, and I suspect that with settling and compaction over time, depressions will only worsen.

"Add to this the fact that there was no attempt to de-compact rutted soils compressed by the sheer weight of the vibroseis vehicles, as was required in BOCI's permits, thereby adding to elevation disparities."

Meyer also pointed out that the damage to the landscape impacted growth of new bald cypress trees. The seedlings need "just the right amount of water to take root in the dry season."

"Too much water during the dry season interferes with gaining a foothold. Too much water in the wet season drowns the seedlings," Meyer pointed out. "The result of failed cypress recruitment, as we have witnessed over the course of  two or three years following reclamation, is the loss of this very unique dwarf cypress habitat that is needed to provide roosting and nesting, attachment sites for many listed plant species, and an overall micro habitat that is shade dependent."

From Kelly's vantage point as a former Florida environmental enforcement attorney, "until the oil company is required to complete full compensatory mitigation for the loss of wetland functions and Florida panther habitat, it will continue to receive preferential treatment over other permittees in Florida. This sends a message to industry that it’s okay to ignore legal requirements because they will not be enforced."

Meanwhile, the Park Service has yet to announce whether it will grant Burnett Oil's request for permits to drill for oil. The company has proposed building two well pads, one along Interstate 75 between Fort Launderdale and Naples and another a bit north of U.S. 41 where Collier, Broward and Miami-Dade counties meet. The company also plans to reduce potential impacts to the preserve by using directional drilling to avoid the need for additional wellpads.

Concerns over those plans have been raised by the Miccosukee Tribe, as well as NRDC, NPCA, the South Florida Wildlands Association, and the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks.