Friends of the Everglades sent a letter to the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to express their concerns around plans to include the Eastern Gulf of America (formerly the Gulf of Mexico) in its 11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program. The group says that oil and gas drilling so close to Everglades National Park could have “huge ramifications for multiple Everglades ecosystems.”
In the letter, the group references the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in history, which sent oil onto the beaches of Florida’s panhandle, down to Tampa Bay, and even onto the Atlantic Coast. The current lease plan by BOEM calls for oil drilling as close as 100 miles off the coast of Florida, moving potential oil drilling even closer to Florida than the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
“An oil spill in that proximity, even a fraction a size of the Deepwater Horizon event, would be disastrous for the coastal Everglades,” states the letter.
The letter speaks to the potential threats to manatees (an endangered species), sea turtles, dolphins, sport fish, oysters, wading birds, and commercially important lobster and stone crab, as well as to mangrove forests.
“After decades of pollution and alterations to the region’s hydrology, the Everglades already exist in an imperiled state, in need of ongoing work to restore the flow of abundant and clean water into the ecosystem’s wetlands,” says the letter. “Oil drilling off the coast of the Everglades further threatens the restoration of this ecosystem.”
The Gulf of America Program Area B in the proposed plan presents the most significant threat to the Everglades. Leases in that area would begin in 2029. Leases in the Gulf of America Program Area A could also present a threat to Gulf Islands National Seashore in the Northern Gulf.
“The coastal Everglades that would be threatened by oil drilling in the eastern Gulf are one of a kind and hold tremendous value both ecologically and economically,” states the letter.
The proposed lease plan is undergoing its first analysis and proposal. A 60-day comment period is currently open until January 23, 2026.
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