AUSTIN¾ The Sierra Club is calling on the state of Texas, the Department of the Interior and the White House to examine the cost and feasibility of buying the rights to oil and gas deposits under and close to Padre Island National Seashore. Last Wednesday the Bush Administration announced a $235 million buyout of privately held oil and gas rights below Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve and federally owned mineral rights off the coast of the Florida panhandle.

"If Florida's beaches and national parks deserve that kind of protection, why don't the beaches and national parks in Texas?" said Fred Richardson of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We're surprised to see a Texas president giving his home state second-rate treatment. The Lone Star State deserves better."

In February the National Park Service approved an operation for gas exploration and production on Padre Island National Seashore. For the past four months the park has been overrun by 18-wheelers that drive 15 miles up and down the beach to service a drilling rig in the dunes. The park is close to approving another permit for an even larger operation that will last 140 days or more.

Everyday the heavy trucks drive over oceanfront beach that is critical habitat for the Kemp's ridley sea turtle, the most endangered sea turtle in the world, with an adult population numbering only three to five thousand worldwide. Park managers estimate that they will allow BNP Petroleum, Inc. to drill 18 wells within the park, and that BNP's operations will continue for 15 years.

By contrast, President Bush announced on May 29^th that the federal government will pay $120 million to buy out the privately-owned mineral rights under Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida. Like Padre National Seashore, the authorizing legislation for Big Cypress contained a provision allowing access for the extraction of oil and gas reserves beneath the park.

President Bush also announced that the federal government will pay Chevron and two other companies $115 to buy back oil and gas leases off the coast of the Florida panhandle. "It's good public policy," said Gov. Jeb Bush. President Bush went on to tell members of the news media that the buyout is the ultimate example of his "new environmentalism for the 21^st century."

The federal buy out option is one that should be seriously considered for Padre National Seashore. The process could be started by Land Commissioner David Dewhurst ordering a review of the estimated value of state holdings off the coast of Padre National Seashore. In addition to the state-owned holdings, a handful of private estates own the mineral rights directly below the island.

"We agree that it's good policy not to drill in a national park like Big Cypress," said Richardson. "And we think it's only fair that President Bush should extend that good policy to one of the best-loved recreation areas in his home state."

The Sierra Club and other critics of the drilling on Padre Island have pointed to inadequate planning and analysis of the potential impact of the truck traffic and the drilling on sea turtles and other vulnerable species. In the environmental assessment for the project prepared by NPS, no plan was devised for protecting Kemp's ridley turtles from truck traffic because it was assumed that the drilling operation would be over before the turtles began nesting in the park in April. Although required by law, the park did not halt operations and order a study of possible impacts to the turtles when it became clear that drilling would continue into April (the drilling still continues, and work on the second operation is expected to begin soon and last through the duration of the turtle nesting season in October).

Another controversy involving the drilling and an endangered species arose in March, when it was revealed that in the early months of 2001 a co-owner of BNP met with Bush Administration officials to discuss regulatory matters related to the park. According to a March 27 news account in the McAllen Monitor, the BNP official "lobbied to reverse a proposed ruling from U.S. Fish and Wildlife that would have included Padre Island National Seashore in the critical habitat designation for the endangered piping plover."

Padre Island National Seashore encompasses 130,000 acres of barrier island habitat southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas. The park drawing an average of 800,000 visitors a year. Padre Island is the longest unbroken barrier beach in the United States, and the longest undeveloped barrier beach in the world. The seashore is home to numerous endangered or threatened species, including the Kemp's ridley, loggerhead, green, and hawksbill sea turtles.