Environmental activists in Florida started an 80-mile march Sunday to protest oil drilling they fear will come to the Everglades.
The green activists only stopped their march for protests and press conferences and will keep marching until Friday. They intend to march from a campground in the Everglades near Ochopee, Fla. to Collier Seminole State Park near Naples, Fla. Their explicit goals include encouraging local governments to ban hydraulic fracturing and protecting the state’s water quality.
The Facebook event, called Walk For Future Generations 80 Miles in 6 Days, shows that of the more than 3,200 people invited, only 114 showed up.
While last year, activists circulated an online petition asking a Florida county government to ban fracking, but the petition failed to gather the necessary 100 signatures over the entire year. Though the petition failed and there is no fracking in that jurisdiction anyway, the local government still voted unanimously to ban fracking in January. A bill overruling the local government was promptly passed by Florida’s state legislature at the end of January.
“I’m here because I don’t want my water polluted like Flint,” Tanya Tweeton, an environmental activist associated with a local Sierra Club affiliate, told the Broward Palm Beach New Times when protesting in January. “If the aquifer gets contaminated, that’s it. The water will be poisoned.”
Beliefs that fracking can contaminate aquifers defy “basic geology [which] prevents such contamination from starting below ground,” according to the science magazine Popular Mechanics.
American Indians, representing the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples and the Panther Clan of Miccosukee Tribe, will be joining the activists on the march. These American Indians claim that fracking and “irresponsible development” threaten their traditional way of life.
The march has already prompted another attempt to ban fracking in Calhoun County, Fla.
Send tips to andrew@
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.