The Brooksville Journal

Oil Lease Case
Will Be Heard on Gulf Coast: Absent 4
Internal Improvement Fund Trustees To Decide If Drilling Will Affect Beach Property

Tallahassee Jan. 30 The question of whether oil operations on the Florida gulf coast will harm beach property and commercial fishing today was called up for public hearing and determination by trustees of the internal improvement fund.

They tentatively set the date for Feb. 14, and decided to allow each side an hour to present its evidence for or against granting an offshore lease to Arnold Oil Explorations, Inc., for an area extending from the Pasco-Pinellas county line to the 26th parallel.

Attorneys for the Arnold firm, pressing for the lease the company claims it is entitled to under an old oil exploration agreement, had asked for the hearing in an effort to "harmonize the situation" presented by protests filed by residents of the Tampa bay area.

At the same time, K. I. McKay attorney for the Arnold company, asked the trustees to defer consideration of an application for permission to assign an existing lease on 660,000 acres of state-owned lake bottom to the Texas company.

Governor Caldwell said he had suggested the assignment from Arnold to the Texas company should provide that in event of default on drilling requirements the oil rights should revert to the state, not to the Arnold company as the proposed assignment now is drafted. McKay said representatives of the Texas company could not accept the change without authority of officials of their firm.

The governor said he thought it would be "better to keep the record simple and clear so the trustees will know definitely with whom they are dealing and to whom they should look for performance" of the drilling requirements and other terms of the lease.

The lake bottom lease was recently upheld by the supreme court, but Attorney General Watson, who attacked it, has asked for a rehearing.

The offshore lease was authorized by the cabinet a year ago but its actual issuance was held up after Tampa bay area residents protested oil operations would be detrimental to property and public interests.

A lease covering the northern half of the area included in the original offshore exploration agreement was issued to Arnold several weeks ago, when no protests were filed from that territory.