What happened at the treasured Big Cypress National Preserve was "horrendous"
Damage done at Big Cypress National Preserve by Burnett Oil Co., Inc. Photos provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Quest Ecology.
The Big Cypress National Preserve is a soggy wonder a place that is, as nature writer Jeff Ripple once noted, one of the few left in Florida where you can stand still and hear nothing but the sounds of nature.
Forty-six years ago, when the federal government bought the Big Cypress Swamp and created the 729,000-acre preserve, the government left a loophole that makes the word preserve somewhat misleading.
Although the National Park Service took charge of the land, which is a haven for some of Floridas most endangered wildlife species, the feds did not buy the mineral rights under the land.
Those are overseen by the Collier Resources Company, which three years ago dispatched a Texas oil company into the preserve. The oil company used a massive, 33-ton machine that sends sound waves into the ground to determine how much oil might be under 110 square miles of the preserve.
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https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2020/04/30/what-happened-at-the-treasured-big-cypress-national-preserve-was-horrendous/