Kathy Castor slams idea of fracking in Florida

The day after the Florida House approved  a controversial measure that would regulate and study fracking in Florida, Tampa Bay area Democratic U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor blasted the idea of fracking coming to the Sunshine State.

“You have to understand the geology of Florida. We are built on a porous limestone, a very thin rock layer,” Castor said at a news conference Thursday in South Tampa. She  met with local clean-energy officials to chart out how to teach community leaders on being more energy efficient.

“It makes no sense whatsoever to pump chemicals down into our drinking water supply and break up that limestone rock to try to get out what is probably a minimal amount of gas,” she said.

Plenty of state Democrats offered similar criticisms during Wednesday’s debate on the floor of the state House of Representatives. The House voted 73-45 to approve the bill (HB 191), with just a few Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. The bill calls for the Department of Environmental Protection to conduct a $1 million study on how fracking would affect surface and groundwater and underground geology and then set regulations for the fracking industry. It will also look at how water and chemicals will be disposed of and any potential for contamination once a well has been plugged.

Hydraulic fracking uses water and chemicals to blast through rock to get to oil and gas underneath. Since its use became widespread it has led to an energy revolution of sorts in the U.S., and has significantly boosted domestic oil production and driven down gas prices.

However, it’s controversial because of the potential adverse affects to the environment.

Fracking uses large amounts of water that must be carried to the fracking site at significant environmental cost. Environmentalists say potentially carcinogenic chemicals used may escape and contaminate groundwater around the fracking site.

“The future of our economy and the future of clean energy is energy efficiency,” Castor stressed. “Renewables that are clean that are not going to put our environment at risk,” adding that Florida is tourist state dependent on a healthy, clean environment.

Castor also discussed recent developments regarding solar power in Florida.

The group aiming on getting a constitutional amendment on the 2016 ballot that would offer Floridians the choice of obtaining solar power outside of the public utilities – Floridians for Solar Choice – recently said it can’t generate the more than 683,000 signatures required in time to get on the ballot. However, a competing solar power amendment (called Consumers for Smart Solar) backed by the utilities, might qualify.

Castor called the situation, “unfortunate.”

“It’s another example of the political power that the electric monopolies have in Tallahassee, so what we’re trying to do here locally is work from the grass roots up,” she said, while also touting her just announced energy bill that she says will spur investment and research in widespread distributed energy technology, such as rooftop solar.