There is a big difference between supporting fracking in general and supporting fracking in Florida. The entire State of Florida sits on top of an aquifier, making fracking both impractical and unnecessary. Maybe @Smokin Joe can give better insight on this. As for offshore drilling, there has been a ban on that since 1989. Florida derives billions in sustainable revenue from its pristine beaches, far more than can be derived from drilling.
But then this thread isn't about fracking. It is about whether Governor DeSantis lied as one poster has claimed. And so far, no lie has surfaced.
The issue of fraccing is moot where there are no oil wells, but Florida does have oil, too, and it is causing a quiet kerfuffle.
Here is one take on the issues:
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/alison-kelly/south-floridas-dirty-secret-oilProduction levels appear to be about 1.2 million barrels of oil annually.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/florida_crude_oil_production Reserves are about 1/10 of 1% of US reserves.
The fight is on, not with just the usual environmental groups, but because the mineral rights are in private hands, and the overlying surface was made into Big Cypress National Preserve. Congress allowed for the production of Oil, which was discovered in 1943, long before the preserve was created.
For a timeline of events:
http://www.collierresources.com/history-of-oil-exploration-development So, in a sense, this is a local issue, of time and place where oil is produced, and whether taking from the owners of the minerals the ability to produce them constitutes a taking, and if so, how to value that.
(I consider a similar issue where relatives planted Red Oak trees before the civil war on 22 acres of land my parents own, but State and Federal agencies will not let them what is likely millions of dollars of timber.)
The statements I read display a limited general knowledge of geology, oil drilling, and fraccing.
By no means are aquifers unique to Florida, in fact, most of the nation has one underfoot.
Aside from freshwater rivers and lakes (often fed in part by aquifers), those aquifers are the main water source for virtually all of humanity.
An oil well is not, as some might think, just a hole in the ground.
Individual States adopt regulations for their construction, but industry best practices are involved as well. Additionally, the Bureau of Land Management has adopted standards for pad construction, lease roads, etc, which have generally become best practices for the industry, at least in the areas I have worked. Often, those standards were adopted by the BLM from the oil companies, who practiced them to avoid legal issues should something go wrong.
For the wellbore itself, generally, the first 50-150 ft. are drilled through surface material, and a steel conductor pipe is set. This protects near surface aquifers, but also keeps the surface material from sloughing into the hole during the next phase of drilling. From there, the hole is drilled using native materials and fresh water to a depth beyond that of the deepest freshwater aquifer in the area. That hole is subsequently lined with steel casing, and that casing is cemented in place, at a depth ranging from 1500 ft. to 4500 ft., depending on the geology of the area.
Then the oil well is drilled from that casing; in the case of a horizontal well, through the curve and into the target zone.
That interval is also lined with casing, extending to the surface. That casing is also cemented in place.
The remainder of the well is drilled in the target stratum, horizontally or at a very high angle to the vertical (usually 84 to 92 degrees from vertical). Then that section of the well is lined and the liner cemented in place, the well is displaced with production fluid (usually salt water of sufficient density to keep adequate hydrostatic pressure on the hole).
That's the end of the drilling phase, the drilling rig is moved off, and the location handed off to the production crews. In the upper part of the hole, there are now the conductor pipe, the surface casing, and the intermediate casing with their respective cement layers on the outside of each, between any aquifer outside the casing and the wellbore. The cement jobs are checked for integrity using Casing Bond Logs (like an ultrasound to identify any irregularities in the cement so they can be remediated, if found). Here, (and I cannot speak to the regions I have not worked in), about the only way to contaminate the surface aquifers is to spill something.
Fraccing is a production enhancement technique often used in combination with perforating the liner in the zone of interest. Perforating is usually done using shaped charges which blow holes through the liner and surrounding cement and into the producing formation. When those segments (or that entire horizontal wellbore) are ready, frac crews hook into the well, set packers to isolate the segment of the hole being fracced, and pump water and sand with a few chemicals through those perforations in the production liner and into the rock of the producing formation, at pressures high enough to crack the rock. Those induced fractures are propped open by the sand, which allows fluids to pass through the porosity between the sand grains.
The fracturing occurs at the depth where the oil will be produced, usually between 9500 and 11000 ft. below the surface (the reason for that is that is the depth of burial that source rocks generally reach thermal maturity, producing the hydrocarbons that are the target of the whole operation, although Oil and Natural Gas can and do occur at greater depths). That pressure is roughly two miles down, and the same geological layers that act as seals to keep the oil in the rock down there keep those frac fluids and the oil and gas contained in that geological reservoir.
In a few areas, that oil and gas has migrated from greater depths to shallower ones, but those reservoirs usually exhibit pressure above what they ordinarily would at the depths where the oil and gas formed. Surface seepage is usually more tame, occurring over larger areas and oveer a much longer time. While this is something that may require a bit of special handling to keep the well under control, fraccing is usually not necessary except as a secondary recovery method, or at the very least, not needed until the reservoir has depleted enough to reduce the overpressure.
In Florida, the dirty little secret is that there is oil, that the area it is in is considered environmentally sensitive, and the question is one of the legalities of keeping the owners from producing it. Offshore, the quandary is simple economics, weighing the economic benefit of producing oil and gas off beaches that are an enormous revenue source for the State.
If there is oil out there, it will keep for now, and the oil slicks will come from beachy people covered with suntan slickum.
The question exists, of whether DeSantis will advocate for the entire country what he advocates for Florida: limited drilling onshore and a ban offshore, and a fear of fraccing, which can be (and commonly is) conducted without incident. DeSantis has indicated that he would not extend the Florida policies to the rest of the country.
Depending on how the wells are constructed, the threat to near surface aquifers and even surface waters is minimal if the regulations and procedures are sufficient. They are likely to collect more oil from parking lot runoff.
