Miccosukee Tribe seeks to end oil rights for Collier Resources Co.

Author: David Dorsey, Gulfshore Business
Published: Updated:

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Big Cypress National Preserve. It also marks the peaking of efforts by the Miccosukee Tribe to end oil drilling and pumping in the Everglades. 

When the federal government bought more than 700,000 acres from the descendants of Barron Collier in 1974 in creating the preserve, the deal allowed for the Tribe to live off some of that land in the form of fishing, hunting and ecotourism, including airboat tours. However, Collier Resources Co. maintained the mineral rights, which included two oil wells that already had been drilled and a third that since was drilled. 

The wells are named Bear Island and Racoon Point. The latter is about 11 miles north of Tamiami Trail, where a locked yellow gate and a dirt road entrance are about the same distance west of the Tribe’s headquarters in western Miami-Dade County. 

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