• In January 2001, Nueces County hired BNP Petroleum Corp. to analyze and comment on the US Fish and Wildlife economic impact study related to the agency’s designation of 7,000 acres of critical piping plover habitat. By the time the US Fish and Wildlife proposal was finalized in July 2001, the plover habitat had been slashed to 2,000 acres in Nueces County. (Piping plovers are small birds that fly from the Great Lakes and Canada to the Gulf Coast to winter.)

• BNP and four other oil and gas companies then won approval from EPA for a lucrative Padre Island Drilling Plan on more than 1,300 square kilometers—completely surrounding the remaining bits of piper habitat.

• The National Park Service granted the first drilling permit under this plan to BNP for a gas well within the park in February 2002. The park superintendent and BNP held a press conference on February 9 to announce approval of the permit. The news came as a surprise to most people because it appears that no notice was given to local elected officials, and few people knew that the permit had been submitted for approval. Public notice was officially filed in the Federal Register on November 23, the day after Thanksgiving. The public comment period closed the day before Christmas.

• BNP’s first permit allows the company to drill one gas well for exploration and production. BNP has already applied for more permits to complete a three-phase, multi-well drill project. BNP currently owns oil and gas leases covering 62,930 acres on Padre Island and in the Laguna Madre. The company also owns options covering about 57,000 surface acres on Padre Island. Total revenue from natural gas production could produce as much as $3.4 billion, according to estimates provided by company owner Barbara Canales-Black.

• Construction has begun in the dunes on the first well, 15 miles south of the visitor center and park headquarters.

• Large, 16-wheeler trucks carrying drilling equipment and pipe segments are currently traveling 15 miles down the beach to reach the well area. The dunes at mile 15 are being bulldozed, and a paved road will be plowed through them to allow heavy trucks to pass from the beach to the well pad.

• Heavy truck access will be allowed at virtually all times. The National Parks Service may require some type of precaution such as use of a spotter to direct truck traffic during Kemp Ridley's sea turtle nesting season.

• The federal government and the park service are required to protect the "wind tidal flat which is used as resting and foraging habitat [for the piping plover] by minimizing activities such as off-road driving and development within and adjacent to the park." They are also required, as part of their recovery plan for the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, to "develop a plan to phase out beach driving on important local or regional nesting beaches." (Oil and Gas Management Plan March 2001, US Department of Interior, National Park Service)

• There is no time limit on BNP's production in the permit, and the environmental assessment acknowledges that pumping could last over 20 years.

• Oil and gas drilling within the park will not only affect the environment and the species that live there, but also people who come to the park. Surveys show that one of the top reasons people visit the park is to "experience peace and quiet." The 2001 Oil and Gas Management Plan for Padre shows that a drilling rig 200 feet away is nearly as loud as standing next to a vacuum cleaner or an automatic dishwasher. A diesel truck 25 feet away is 90 decibels—enough to stop conversations and nearly the equivalent of standing next to a power lawnmower.

• Private individuals and estates own the mineral rights below the National Seashore. BNP, which is privately owned, could make billions of dollars on the production of gas from underneath the park. Barbara Canales-Black is the majority owner of BNP, and has been legal counsel for the company. Her husband, Paul Black, is the corporation's president. (BNP=Barbara ‘n’ Paul)

• According to the Associated Press, Canales-Black claimed that drilling at the well will generate royalty funds for the state (which is used to fund higher education), but the truth is that the mineral rights for the BNP well are privately owned by the Dunn-McCampbell estate, and not one cent of royalties from that activity will go to the state of Texas.

• BNP holds leases on 36,000 acres of land within the boundaries of the national seashore.

• BNP’s oil and gas wastes disposal site in Hidalgo County (near La Joya has) received numerous violations and warnings from the Texas Railroad Commission (the agency that regulated the oil and gas industry), and complaints from neighboring landowners.

• BNP’s waste disposal permit strictly prohibits the disposal of any oil and gas waste other than water-based drilling fluids and associated solids. The waste is supposed to be disked into the soil a foot deep, and not allowed to run off the site. However, John Martin, the adjacent landowner, said "I used to have to call Paul Black about the waste that was being dumped there. The pits would fill up with this petroleum oilfield chemical stuff and run all over the ground. It was obviously out of compliance."

• The Railroad Commission flagged the BNP site (run by a company called Tom Gill Services [TGS], because the land is own Tom Gill Road) numerous times for permit violations and failure to provide the required soil samples and disposal reports. In 1997, the Railroad Commission cited TGS for dumping a truckload of unauthorized waste material. The salinity level of the contaminated area tested at 39,000 milligrams per liter, almost 15 times the legal limit of 2,500 milligrams per liter.

• In September 1999, the Railroad Commission caught TGS in the act of disposing three truckloads full of illegal oil waste "flowback" fluids. Again, in 1999, the agency cited TGS for illegally dumping solid waste into a non-permited area.

• Despite these and many other violations, the Railroad Commission never took BNP or TGS to the enforcement stage to assess a fine or penalty.

• Padre Island, the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world, stretches for 110 miles along the Texas Gulf Coast. The national seashore occupies over 80 miles of uninhabited island paradise, a place where white sand beaches are caressed by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

• Padre Island is the longest unbroken barrier beach in the world.

• PNS and Laguna Madre are home to 11 endangered or threatened species, including Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. (The full list includes: Eastern Brown Pelican, Piping Plover, Black-capped Vireos, Kemp’s ridley Sea Turtle, Loggerhead, Green, Leatherback, and Hawksbill Sea Turtles, Reddish Egret, White-tailed Hawk, Ferruginous hawk, and White-faced Ibis) Additionally, several threatened and endangered birds also migrate through the park and stop to feed and rest there, including the Aplomado Falcon, American Swallow-tailed Kite, Woodstork, and Bald Eagle.

• PNS receives approx. 800,000 visitors per year, making it the second most visited NPS unit in Texas after San Antonio Missions NHS.