Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, injects high
pressure volumes of water, sand and chemicals into existing wells
to unlock natural gas and oil. The technique essentially
fractures the rock to get to the otherwise unreachable deposits.
Conventional oil and gas production methods can affect
groundwater much more than fracking, according to
hydrogeologists Jennifer McIntosh from the University of
Arizona and Grant Ferguson from the University of Saskatchewan.
On Tuesday, groups submitted a letter to California’s key
resource agencies responsible for preserving and managing the
state’s natural resources, urging the agencies to protect
drinking water and safeguard public health from the pending
request for exemption from federal safe drinking water rules in
the Cat Canyon Oil Field in Santa Barbara County.
According to a 2017 report by the Outdoor Industry Association,
outdoor recreation generated $92 billion in consumer spending
in California and is directly responsible for 691,000 jobs in
the state. That’s why local residents and elected leaders have
sought additional safeguards to make sure that some of the more
extraordinary lands and rivers within the national forest and
monument receive permanent protection as wilderness and wild
and scenic rivers.
Under U.S. EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act and California
regulations, when oil companies want to use “cyclic steam”
blasting or steam flooding, they’re required to submit an
“underground injection control,” or UIC, application to state
regulators. But state employees said at least 12 ”dummy”
project folders appear to have been used over the past
several years to wrongly issue permits, including by
high-ranking supervisors.
State regulators say they’re cautiously optimistic that a major
release of crude oil from a Chevron well in Kern County — an
episode that has continued for three months — is finally over.
The Center for Biological Diversity is threatening to sue the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its decision earlier
this year to exempt portions of the Arroyo Grande Oil Field
from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
I’m here with Dr. Peter Gleick, co-founder and president
emeritus of the Pacific Institute. Peter serves on the Circle
of Blue Board of Trustees from his base in California, where
Governor Gavin Newsom just signed a bill directing some $130
million to improve access to clean drinking water for many
state residents.
A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Colorado
School of Mines (Mines) is developing a microbe-based system
that could remove toxic compounds from oilfield produced water
so it can be reused in other water-intensive sectors such as
agriculture and energy production.
When the news broke, in the second week of July, that nearly
800,000 gallons of oil and water had spilled into a dry
creekbed from an oil production facility in Kern County, it
sounded rare and dramatic. But the spill was unique only in its
magnitude. In the oil fields of the San Joaquin Valley, spills
and seeps of oil, wastewater and oil-laced wastewater are as
common as the wind storms that episodically blanket the Valley
with dust.
To meet ambitious climate goals, L.A. needs more local water. A
critical step is battling the ghosts of industry past —
polluted groundwater that dates back to World War II.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed into law the Safe and
Affordable Drinking Water Fund bill in the tiny Fresno County
community of Tombstone Territory — where residents rely on
bottled water because their private wells are contaminated.
Starting next year, Senate Bill 200 will provide $130 million
annually to clean up drinking water in California communities
like Tombstone that lack access to safe water.
In areas where groundwater levels have fallen because of heavy
pumping, people have often responded by drilling deeper wells.
But exactly how much that has been occurring on a nationwide
scale wasn’t clear until water experts compiled nearly 12
million well-drilling records from state and local agencies
across the country.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, in the Central Valley on Wednesday for a
firsthand look at one of the largest oil spills in California
history, vowed to go beyond the state’s already aggressive
efforts to curtail the use of fossil fuels and seek a long-term
strategy to reduce oil production.
Siding with environmental groups and outspoken Oxnard
residents, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday
voted not to approve a plan to add four new oil wells at an
existing drilling site. … It was a big win for
environmentalists and south Oxnard activists who are opposed to
drilling, pesticides and industrial uses near residents.
Chevron records show the large, McKittrick-area oil leak …
probably originated with an idle well being worked on at the
same time the company was injecting high-pressure steam just
360 feet away, a combination that industry people say should
not have been performed simultaneously in such close proximity
and which possibly contributed to the release.
On the same day Sen. Dianne Feinstein chastised Chevron Corp.
for keeping an 800,000-gallon spill outside Bakersfield “under
wraps,” California officials confirmed Thursday that the site
was once again seeping a hazardous mix of oil and water.
State oil and gas regulators have released a series of photos
of a Kern County well site where about 800,000 gallons of crude
oil and water have spilled from a Chevron well site.
Brokered in large part by rookie state senator for California’s
14 Senate District, Melissa Hurtado, the southern portion of
the Valley has gained tens of millions of dollars of investment
in drinking water, asthma mitigation, aging and disability
resource centers and Valley Fever research.
California’s top oil regulator, losing patience with Chevron’s
response to the uncontrolled release of thousands of barrels of
oil near McKittrick, has ordered the company to “take all
measures” to make sure petroleum, water and steam do not resume
rising to the surface after previous efforts to stop the flow
there proved temporary.
The California Legislature recently passed SB-200 that will
create an annual fund of $130 million to tackle the state’s
drinking water problems. Here are five things you need to know
about SB-200…
The seep, which has been flowing off and on since May, has
again stopped, said Chevron spokeswoman Veronica
Flores-Paniagua, with the last flow Tuesday. … Chevron
reported that 794,000 gallons of oil and water have leaked out
of the ground where it uses steam injection to extract oil in
the large Cymric Oil Field about 35 miles west of Bakersfield.
Two consumer groups are calling on California’s governor to
freeze all new oil drilling permits and to clean house at the
agency that issues them, after the organizations uncovered
records showing that top state regulators and engineers held
investments in Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Valero and other
petrochemical giants.
Legislative leaders reached a compromise with Newsom to take
some money out of a fund used to improve air quality and use it
for drinking water. … The state Assembly approved the
proposal on Friday by a vote of 67-0. It now heads to the state
Senate.
Here in Oxnard, we are also at a crossroads regarding the
safety of our water. In February, scientists from the United
States Geological Survey found that groundwater near the Fox
Canyon aquifer system in eastern Oxnard was contaminated in an
area of steam injection oil production … The USGS found
thermogenic gases — byproducts of oil drilling — in groundwater
wells near oil operations.
California’s political leaders have made the long-overdue
decision to clean up the Central Valley’s contaminated drinking
water, and help cash-strapped rural water districts. The catch:
rather than assess a fee on water users or tapping into the
state’s budget surplus, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature
relied on cap-and-trade money to pay for a portion of the
operation.
Over 10 years, it would funnel $1.4 billion to the fund for
clean water solutions. The budget has been approved by the
California Legislature, but still needs Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
signature to pass. It also still needs trailer bills that
authorize some of the spending – including the drinking water
fund.
Two Fresno City Councilmembers made an atypical move at a press
conference today by throwing in their support for a clean water
drinking fund—as long as it doesn’t involve a tax.
This segment contains two interviews: In the first, KVPR
reporter Kerry Klein sheds light on what this document says and
does, and shares how San Joaquin Valley residents have
responded. In the second, Stanford geophysicist Mark Zoback
explains some fracking basics, including what is and isn’t
known about the technique’s impact on the environment.
By the State Water Resources Control Board’s estimates, more
than a million Californians don’t have safe drinking water
flowing through the pipes into their homes. … As Gov. Gavin
Newsom prepares to send his revised $213 billion budget to the
legislature for approval, a trailer bill proposes that the
legislature appropriate $150 million a year to a Safe and
Affordable Drinking Water Fund.
Sentinel Peak Resources has cleared an environmental hurdle
that could allow it to move forward with years-old plans to
increase drilling in the Arroyo Grande Oil Field — but whether
it will or not is still up in the air. The Environmental
Protection Agency granted Sentinel Peak Resources an aquifer
exemption on April 30, exempting portions of the aquifer under
the oil field from protections guaranteed by the federal Safe
Drinking Water Act.
The United States has one of the world’s safest drinking water
supplies, but new challenges constantly emerge. For example …
many farm workers in California’s Central Valley have to buy
bottled water because their tap water contains unsafe levels of
arsenic and agricultural chemicals that have been linked to
elevated risks of infant death and cancer in adults. … So I
was distressed to hear EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler tout
the quality of drinking water in the U.S. in an interview on
March 20, 2019.
Community activist Dolores Huerta joined local leaders in East
Bakersfield to urge elected leaders Tuesday to vote in favor of
legislation they say will ensure safe drinking water for
communities in the valley. Specifically, Huerta urged the
legislature to support what’s being termed the Safe and
Affordable Drinking Water Fund. It would be financed by the tax
payers, estimated to be a one dollar per month tax increase on
every water bill in California.
A presentation by the U.S. Geological Survey to California
water boards has surfaced that reveals contamination in the
groundwater around the Orcutt oilfield, the Environmental
Defense Center in Santa Barbara claims. The advocacy group
released the information on Tuesday, stating that “federal
scientists found evidence of oil-field fluids in groundwater
underlying the nearby Orcutt oil field.”
A public meeting erupted into an impassioned rally in San Luis
Obispo Wednesday night as activists and local residents took
turns bashing a federal plan to resume leasing public land in
Central California to new oil and gas drilling, including
fracking.
It is hard to fathom how the fifth-largest economy in the world
can settle for letting public water systems serve up
contaminated water. How will our economy continue to grow and
how will we attract new businesses and new workers if the state
can’t provide a basic human need?
The majority of the dozens of commenters at the meeting spoke
out against the analysis and the prospect of increased fracking
in the region, expressing concerns about air pollution,
drinking water quality, and climate change. … Tempers at the
meeting also flared for what many attendees viewed as a lack of
accountability from the BLM. The agency did not record the
meeting, instead inviting attendees to submit written comments
online, electronically, and only in English.
CSUN students and faculty have long contributed to California’s
efforts to ensure access to clean drinking water, efforts that
have intensified during the recent multi-year drought. A group
of students in CSUN’s Department of Geography and Environmental
Studies is helping in these efforts.
Kern’s oil industry took a pass Tuesday on a public hearing
focused on the environmental impacts of fracking, handing the
day to dozens of anti-oil activists who convened in downtown
Bakersfield to rail against the technique and the threat of
climate change. … The event was one of three hearings the BLM
is hosting as part of its plan to reopen federal land in
California to oil production.
The Bureau of Land Management Bakersfield office is set to hold
a meeting Tuesday over a White House proposal that would expand
oil drilling and fracking on more than a million acres of
public land across the state. … The proposal includes 40 new
wells over the next 10 years on roughly 400,000 acres of public
land and 1.2 million acres of federal mineral estate — land
where the surface is owned privately, but the mineral rights
beneath the ground are managed by the federal government.
On March 28, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an Executive
Order to promote increased oil and gas development… Then, in
April 2019, in response to the President’s order, the US Bureau
of Land Management (BLM) proposed opening up more than 1
million acres of public land in California’s Central Valley and
southern Central Coast to oil and gas production.
More than 725,000 acres of Central Coast land could be opened
up for oil and gas extraction under a new plan led by the Trump
administration. But due to local regulations — and economic
realities — Santa Cruz County land appears unlikely to be
affected even if the plan is approved.
A more than five-year moratorium on leasing land in California
for oil and gas development will be coming to an end with a May
9 Interior Department plan to open up about 725,000 acres
across the state’s Central Coast and the Bay Area for drilling.
The decision comes just two weeks after the Trump
administration released its plan to reopen more than 1 million
acres of public land and federal mineral estate in eight
counties in Central California to fracking.
Oil companies may have more space to build injection wells in
the Cat Canyon Oil Field if the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) approves a potential recommendation from various
state agencies. … If the EPA approves expanding the exempted
area, class 2 injection wells could be built over almost the
entire oil field boundary, according to maps prepared by DOGGR.
These wells are used to dispose of fluids associated with oil
and gas production.
Implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA) was always going to be tricky. Part of the necessary
growing pains of SGMA is determining how the revolutionary
statute interacts with traditional tenets of water law. As with
any other sweeping legislative change, SGMA does not provide
direct answers for every practical question which arises as the
law is put into place.
Newsom … said he would announce his administration’s detailed
strategy on energy policy in the next few weeks. The governor
was coy about core aspects of that policy, and declined to say
if it would ban the controversial practice of hydraulic
fracking, a process that uses drilling and large volumes of
high-pressure water to extract gas and oil deposits.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials will visit San
Luis Obispo later this month to take public comment on a
pending federal plan to grow oil and gas production on public
lands in Central California.
Have you visited Woodward Park recently? The 300-acre park in
Northeast Fresno … exist thanks to a little known, but
important federal program called the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. It was started 50 years ago with a simple
yet brilliant goal: Take money from oil and gas drilling and
put it toward the conservation of America’s public lands, parks
and other outdoor places.
We have a drinking water crisis in California—a crisis that has
disproportionately impacted disadvantaged neighborhoods and
communities of color for years. There is however hope as many
voices, from many different people, with various political
views, have now joined the fight to address this crisis.
A 174-page environmental report released by the U.S. Interior
Department will expedite new extraction on roughly 1 million
acres of Central and Southern California, primarily in the
historical oil fields around Bakersfield and the deep petroleum
deposits near Santa Barbara but potentially in the Sierra
Nevada as well.
A recent report from the California Water Quality Control Board
found “multiple lines of geochemical evidence” indicating that
“groundwater is mixing with oil field fluids.”
An oil company’s request to conduct fracking off the coast of
Ventura was denied by a federal judge this week. The
Ventura-based DCOR, L.L.C. oil and natural gas company will not
be allowed to proceed with its two proposed permits to conduct
fracking in the Santa Barbara Channel at Platform Gilda, which
is about 9 miles off the Ventura coast.
Drought isn’t the only danger to our water supply, as we have
discovered in the last few weeks. Deep under the ground, our
life-saving aquifers have been filling up from the rain. But on
the Oxnard Plain, oil drilling threatens what we’re working so
hard to protect.
Regulatory efforts to protect groundwater quality in western
Kern are forcing two of the county’s largest oil producers to
spend many millions of dollars over the next several years
moving or reworking dozens of disposal wells and other critical
oil-field infrastructure.
The last thing California needs is another tax. But that’s what
Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed – a regressive water tax that
will hit financially challenged Californians hardest. … Yet
California’s taxpayers have been working so hard they have
showered the state with a $22 billion surplus. Spending a
fraction of that would take care of the clean water problem.
EPA won’t regulate any pollution to surface waters that passes
through groundwater. … If pollution travels through
groundwater, EPA says, it “breaks the causal chain” between a
source of pollution and surface waters. That could affect
regulation of pollution from a variety of sources, including
seepage from coal ash and manure management ponds, sewage
collection systems, septic system discharges, and accidental
spills and releases.
U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said on Monday she
would ban all fossil fuel extraction on federal land and in
coastal waters, setting herself apart from a crowded field of
Democratic hopefuls who have made climate change a central
campaign issue but have yet to outline specific policies.
The main target of the order is Section 401 of the Clean Water
Act, which grants states the power to certify that construction
projects will not harm water quality. … The order directs the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consult with states and
tribes about whether Section 401 guidance should be modified.
Some state organizations have expressed firm opposition to the
administration’s attempt to supersede state permitting
authority.
Should the governor want to do away with fracking, he could
issue an emergency order placing a moratorium on it. But the
public hasn’t heard from Newsom on the issue as he has laid out
his initial priorities, and his staff did not answer questions
from CALmatters about his current leanings.
Statewide leaders in agriculture recently launched an
initiative to clean oilfield wastewater for use in arid Western
states, hoping to reduce the region’s carbon footprint and
improve the lives of ranchers and farmers.
Facing a wave of opposition over proposed fees for using well
water, the directors of a little-known public agency backed
away from a decision Thursday and agreed to consider an
alternative plan that would exempt rural residents and cost
other groundwater users far less overall.
David Bernhardt, President Trump’s pick to the lead the
Interior Department, was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday
amid persistent ethical concerns and doubts about his
independence from the energy and water industry groups he long
represented as a lobbyist.
How can state and federal agencies help California’s largest
agricultural region address its difficult water management
problems? This was the theme of an event last week that brought
together PPIC experts with top officials working on issues
related to water, agriculture, and natural resources.
As Secretary, Jared Blumenfeld oversees the state’s efforts to
fight climate change, protect air and water quality, regulate
pesticides and toxic substances, achieve the state’s recycling
and waste reduction goals, and advance environmental justice.
… Blumenfeld joined TPR for an exclusive interview to discuss
the administration’s priorities…
A new rule goes into effect today that will help protect
California’s groundwater. … The new standards for oilfield
injection are some of the strongest in the nation. They require
stricter permitting standards, regular mechanical integrity
testing and routine pressure monitoring – all necessary
ingredients for safeguarding groundwater.
The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission is one step closer
to a decision on whether to approve ERG’s oil drilling and
production plan. It would include developing and operating more
than 200 new oil production wells in the Cat Canyon area. At
recent planning commission meetings, dozens of people have
shown up both in support and opposition to the project.
Supporters say it will increase jobs in the area, while
opponents express concern for the environment.
Here in California, the San Joaquin Valley is a hot spot for
unsafe drinking water. The region has more than half of all
public water systems that are out of water-quality compliance
in California, but just 10% of the state’s population. … We
talked to Veronica Garibay—co-founder and co-director of the
Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability—about ways to
ensure community involvement in water management
decision-making.
Environmental groups and local residents are sounding alarms
that proposed drilling projects would triple onshore oil
production in Santa Barbara County — to which the oil industry
says, “What’s wrong with that?”
A project offering to triple Santa Barbara County’s oil
production continues stirring debate. Environmentalists believe
a proposal to add dozens of oil wells in Cat Canyon could
trigger the next oil spill and contaminate the Santa Maria
Groundwater Basin, while supporters insist it would boost the
local economy by adding jobs and tax revenue.
A proposal to add 187 new steam-injected oil wells and a new
natural gas pipeline in West Cat Canyon will be considered by
the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission when it meets
Wednesday in Santa Maria. Project opponents have said they
intend to stage a demonstration outside and speak against the
project that would have significant impacts on biological,
surface water and groundwater resources and would increase
noise, according to the environmental impact report.
More than 300 communities across the state and one out of every
four schools in the Central Valley lack access to safe drinking
water, according to the state Water Board. … Responding to
the crisis, Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for a new water tax.
If the proposal passes, the levy will generate $110 million in
annual revenue. But some Californians – many working directly
with the state’s water authorities – oppose the plan. They say
there are better ways to raise the money needed than taxing tap
water.
An analysis of nationwide housing data shows that minority
households disproportionately bear the multibillion-dollar
economic burden that comes from believing their water is
unsafe.
In some California basins, sustainable groundwater management
can mean the difference between whether a species goes extinct
or a community’s drinking water becomes contaminated. The
stakes are high. Felice Pace, an activist who works for the
North Coast Stream Flow Coalition, talks to Clean Water Action
about salmon, surface flows, and the importance of community
involvement in the Smith and Scott River Groundwater
Sustainability Plans.
After concluding Greka Energy improperly stored hazardous waste
at its facility near Santa Maria, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency on Thursday ordered the company to conduct
sampling to determine whether its operations resulted in
contaminated local soil and groundwater.
The cheering is for a governor who has brought attention to a
problem that’s almost unfathomable in wealthy urban regions. No
Californian in 2019 should have to endure third-world
drinking-water conditions. But there’s ample reason to give the
governor the raspberries, too. That’s because Newsom’s solution
comes right out of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “you
never want a serious crisis go to waste” playbook.
Earlier this month the Environmental Protection Agency released
its enforcement data for fiscal year 2018, and in many key
areas data continued to show a downward trend in the civil and
criminal punitive measures meted out to large polluters. And on
Tuesday the House Committee on Energy and Commerce announced it
will hold a hearing next week to investigate the Trump EPA’s
“troubling enforcement record.”
A controversial oilfield wastewater disposal operation east of
Bakersfield has been shut down amid a years-long regulatory
crackdown and opposition by environmental activist
organizations. The Jan. 3 closure … puts an end to a
practice regional water quality regulators say threatened to
foul Bakersfield’s water supply through a slow process of
underground migration.
Newsom has embraced an idea that has previously failed to gain
traction in Sacramento: new taxes totaling as much as $140
million a year for a clean drinking water initiative. Much of
it would be spent on short- and long-term solutions for
low-income communities without the means to finance operations
and maintenance for their water systems. … But the money
to change that — what’s being called a “water tax” in state
Capitol circles — is where the politics get complicated.
Valley Water Management Company, a non-profit company that
disposes of wastewater for dozens of oil operators in
California, has halted discharges at two facilities where
environmentalists say wastewater contaminated groundwater
resources. The closure stems from a lawsuit filed by Clean
Water Action, the Center for Environmental Health, and the
grassroots group Association of Irritated Residents in 2015
Water is becoming a scarce resource in many parts of the world.
Water tables have been falling in many regions for decades,
particularly in areas with intensive agriculture. Wells are
going dry and there are few long-term solutions available — a
common stopgap has been to drill deeper wells. This is exactly
what happened in California’s Central Valley. The recent
drought there prompted drilling of deeper and deeper water
wells to support irrigated agriculture.
The two-week-old shutdown has halted one of the federal
government’s most important public health activities, the
inspections of chemical factories, power plants, oil
refineries, water treatment plants, and thousands of other
industrial sites for pollution violations.
At the Groundwater Resources Association’s Western Groundwater
Congress, a panel of experts discussed emerging issues as
agencies work to develop their plans to comply with the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which became law in
California in 2014.
The ominous climate change report the Trump administration
released on Thanksgiving weekend could provide legal ammunition
for states such as California, which are suing or threatening
to sue the federal government over weakened regulations on
fossil-fuel industries, automobiles and other contributors to a
warming climate.
The parade of trailer trucks rolling through Jay Butler’s dusty
ranch is a precursor to a new fracking boom on the vast federal
lands of Wyoming and across the West. … Like the acreage
offered for lease, the acreage actually leased by energy
companies on federal lands hit its highest level last year
since 2012, the height of the initial fracking boom in the
United States.
You won’t be seeing much of California’s gubernatorial
candidates this fall — at least, you won’t be seeing much of
them together. The only debate between Democrat Gavin Newsom
and Republican John Cox took place on KQED’s Forum radio
program Monday. Prompted by host Scott Shafer, the two had a
lengthy exchange about the state’s approach to climate change.
A Canadian energy company will add to its helium operation with
more than 3,000 acres of newly leased federal land near
Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona.
… Several rivers and streams flow near the leased
parcels and empty into the Colorado River, which supplies water
to 40 million Americans.
Ending a five-year moratorium, the Trump administration
Wednesday took a first step toward opening 1.6 million acres of
California public land to fracking and conventional oil
drilling, triggering alarm bells among environmentalists.
Protect Monterey County, the organization that backed a 2016
anti-fracking ballot initiative called Measure Z, announced it
filed an appeal this week challenging a judge’s ruling that
invalidated part of the ordinance.
California’s attorney general sued the Trump administration yet
again Wednesday, this time for rolling back a fracking rule
that the state says is designed to protect public health and
the environment. The suit challenges the federal Bureau of Land
Management’s move against the rule that requires drilling
companies to disclose what chemicals they’ve used for fracking.
After combing through a decade’s worth of Pennsylvania birth
records, researchers have found that pregnant women living
within two-thirds of a mile of a hydraulic fracturing well were
25% more likely to give birth to a worryingly small infant than
were women who lived at least 10 miles outside that zone during
pregnancy.
During the U.S. Climate Action Pavilion in Bonn, Germany, on
Nov. 11, Gov. [Jerry] Brown presented America’s Pledge report
detailing how U.S. cities, states and businesses will take
action on climate targets it set forth in the Paris Agreement.
… But Brown was interrupted by members of the Native
American community speaking against his support of fracking and
contending that his policies have hurt low-income communities.
Although the majority of Americans get their drinking water
from a municipal, public supply, 1 in 7 rely on private water
wells. Though wells for drinking water and wells for oil and
gas production are known to exist in the same geographic
regions, their proximity to one another across the United
States was uncertain. … “Forty-five million Americans rely on
private groundwater wells for their drinking water,” says Scott
Jasechko, assistant professor at Bren School of Environmental
Science & Management, University of California at Santa
Barbara.
Attorneys on all sides began presenting their cases on the
first day of the Measure Z trial on Monday, arguing over
whether the voter-approved initiative establishing some of the
nation’s toughest oil and gas restrictions is preempted by
federal and state authority. … They [oil industry
attorneys] argued the Measure Z campaign had misled voters into
believing the central issue was fracking and water protection
without fully addressing other aspects of the initiative.
Before leaving town, the U.S. Senate handed President Donald
Trump and the oil industry two long-sought regulatory
appointments that could expedite construction of natural gas
pipelines nationwide.
The Trump administration is asking three federal appeals court
judges in Denver to hold off on a decision regarding a major
federal fracking rule implemented by the Obama administration.
… as the [Interior] secretary [Ryan Zinke] hopscotches across
millions of acres of Western parks, monuments and wilderness
with his Stetson-sporting swagger, a crew of political
appointees in Washington has begun rolling back the
conservation efforts put in effect over the eight years of the
Obama administration. … Mr. Zinke’s staff on Tuesday filed a
legal proposal to rescind the nation’s first safety regulation
on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Over the past decade, innovation has upended the energy
industry. First came the shale revolution. Starting around
2005, companies began to unlock massive new supplies of natural
gas, and then oil, from shale basins, thanks to two new
technologies: horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or
fracking).
Eminent domain is often used by governments to gain
right-of-way for projects such as highways or government
buildings. But state and federal regulators who authorize
pipeline projects also typically grant the private companies
that are building them the right to use eminent domain to
secure needed right-of-way.
Gov. Jerry Brown was on a roll, enthusiastically preaching to a
choir of environmentalists about how carbon use and global
warming are a looming catastrophe for California and the world.
… But a growing number of environmentalists argue that the
governor’s long-standing refusal to ban hydraulic fracking, a
controversial process that has helped revive the oil industry
in California, opens the state to just the type of
environmental disasters he regularly rails against.
The Trump administration is rolling back an Obama
administration rule requiring companies that drill for oil and
natural gas on federal lands to disclose chemicals used in
hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.
Mineral rights and royalty owners have filed a new lawsuit
against Monterey County, challenging voter-approved Measure Z,
which establishes some of the nation’s toughest restrictions on
oil and gas operations in the state’s fourth-largest
oil-producing county. … Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking,
and wastewater injection into aquifers will still be prohibited
during the stay.
The Monterey County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously
approved a letter to the California Department of Conservation
expressing their concerns about a proposal to expand the
boundaries of an aquifer where oil-production wastewater is
being injected.
The suit argues that the U.S. Department of the Interior and
two of its agencies, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and
the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, failed to
fully analyze and disclose the potential environmental risks of
new offshore drilling processes like hydraulic fracturing, also
known as fracking, and acidization.
State Attorney General Kamala Harris and the California Coastal
Commission have filed a lawsuit challenging the federal
government’s finding that fracking off the state’s coast is
environmentally safe.
Is hydraulic fracturing – better known as fracking – safe, as
the oil and gas industry claims? Or does the controversial
drilling technique that has spurred a domestic energy boom
contaminate drinking water, as environmental groups and other
critics charge?
With the passage of Measure Z, which has captured nearly 56
percent of the vote so far, Monterey County would become the
first oil-producing county in California to ban fracking and
expansion of risky oil operations. … Monterey County,
which ranks fourth statewide in oil production, becomes the
sixth county in California to ban fracking.
Environmentalists declared victory early Wednesday on a
nationally watched campaign to ban fracking, the controversial
oil drilling technique, along with all new oil drilling, in
Monterey County.
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management from opening more than 1 million acres in Central
California to oil drilling because the agency did not properly
explore the potential dangers of fracking.
A federal judge on Tuesday tentatively rejected a plan by the
federal Bureau of Land Management to open more than 1,500
square miles of lands in central California to oil drilling and
fracking.
A coalition of environmental groups had worked for more than
two years to persuade [Alameda] county leaders to ban fracking
and other high intensity oil recovery practices to protect
against pollution of local groundwater. The Board of
Supervisors approved the ban 5-0.
A federal judge in Wyoming has struck down the Obama
administration’s regulations on hydraulic fracturing, ruling
that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management doesn’t have the
authority to establish rules over fracking on federal and
Indian lands.
A judge ruled Tuesday that federal regulators lack the
authority to set rules for hydraulic fracturing, dealing
another setback to the Obama administration’s efforts to
tighten how fossil fuels are mined.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has banned the
disposal of hydraulic fracturing waste water at public sewage
plants, formalizing a voluntary practice that removed most
fracking waste from Pennsylvania plants starting in 2011. The
EPA on Monday finalized a rule that prevents operators from
disposing of waste from unconventional oil & gas operations at
publicly owned treatment works [POTW's].
Reversing course on conducting a series of impact studies, the
Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to place a proposed ban
on hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas well stimulation
techniques on the fall ballot.
Bernie Sanders, traipsing across far-flung regions of
California as he seeks a comeback victory here next week,
swatted at likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump
for minimizing the state’s water shortage and the effects of
climate change.
U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris said Saturday that she is
“very skeptical” of hydraulic fracturing, while stopping short
of calling for a moratorium.
Backers of a proposed initiative aimed at banning fracking and
other oil and gas exploration practices announced Thursday
their petition signatures have been verified and deemed
sufficient by the Monterey County registrar of voters just days
after the Board of Supervisors ordered impact studies on the
initiative.
The group Protect Monterey County delivered 16,108 signatures
Wednesday to the Monterey County Elections Department in
support of putting an initiative on the November ballot to ban
fracking and dangerous oil production practices in the county.
Environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency
on Wednesday to force new regulations on the disposal of waste
generated by hydraulic fracturing.
Colorado’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down local government
prohibitions on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, handing oil
and gas companies a victory in a lengthy battle over energy
production in the environmentally conscious state.
The future of federal rules aimed at protecting land, water and
wildlife from energy-production practices including hydraulic
fracturing now rests with a judge in Wyoming.
Californians have lived with the risk of a damaging earthquake
for centuries. Now Oklahomans, and some Kansans, face the same
threat, federal seismologists said on Monday.
More than five years after Oklahoma first saw a startling spike
in earthquakes linked to the disposal of huge volumes of
wastewater created by hydraulic fracturing for oil, the state
continues to shake at an unprecedented rate and the number of
strong quakes is increasing.
Hoping to expand on similar bans already in place in Santa
Cruz, San Benito and Mendocino counties, environmentalists on
Tuesday launched a ballot campaign to prohibit fracking in
Monterey County, setting the stage for another expensive battle
with the oil industry over the controversial drilling
technique.
UC Santa Cruz researcher Thomas Goebel suggests that, in fact,
we do have induced earthquakes here. His latest paper, in the
journal Geophysical Research Letters, is a detailed study of an
earthquake swarm that occurred beneath the Tejon Oil Field
south of Bakersfield on September 22, 2005.
For years fracking in waters off California was quietly
approved without public notice or studies on potential risks to
human and environmental health from tons of toxic chemicals
used in the intense oil-extraction process.
The federal government has agreed to stop approving oil
fracking off the California coast until it studies whether the
practice is safe for the environment, according to legal
settlements filed Friday.
State regulators are investigating whether the controversial
drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking,
contributed to the massive natural gas leak near Porter Ranch.
Colorado’s loud public battle over fracking goes before the
state Supreme Court on Wednesday when the justices hear
arguments about whether local governments can ban the
technique.
Gov. Jerry Brown arrived in Paris Saturday to attend the
international climate summit. His schedule includes 20 meetings
over five days with world leaders.
The rules should be allowed to take effect to protect land,
water and wildlife from practices including hydraulic
fracturing, the Sierra Club and others argue in court
documents.
As Gov. Jerry Brown prepares for his trip to the United Nations
summit on climate change in Paris, protesters gathered outside
the Capitol on Thursday to say he hasn’t done enough at home in
California.
The issue of the governor’s request came to light as part of a
lawsuit against the state by farmers who accuse the state of
doing an inadequate job of preventing water pollution from oil
and gas drilling.
New research from Johns Hopkins University suggests pregnant
women living near fracking wells in Pennsylvania are more
likely to give birth prematurely or have high risk
pregnancies.
A group of U.S. drilling states, seismologists, academics and
industry experts issued guidance Monday in a frank new report
on handling human-induced earthquakes caused by hydraulic
fracturing or the disposal of fracking wastewater.
The Colorado Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether
cities can ban hydraulic fracturing, stepping into a
high-stakes battle over whether local governments can impose
tougher oil and gas rules than the state.
California lawmakers say the report by the California
Council on Science and Technology and the Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab outlined the lack of information state regulators
have about fracking.
A California lawmaker has proposed a new label for food
irrigated with what he calls “fracking water.” … Oil
companies sell Central Valley farms millions of gallons of
treated wastewater every day for irrigation.
A small group of “fracking” opponents traded heated words with
an even smaller number of oil industry supporters Saturday
morning on the Panorama Drive bluffs in northeast Bakersfield,
during an airing of differences over the controversial oil
extraction technique.
The Board of Supervisors called today [July 28] for a detailed
inventory of all oil fields operating within Los Angeles
County, along with recommendations to ensure consistent
regulation.
The hunt for life is part of a much broader effort called the
Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory, or MSEEL.
… Researchers will track air and water quality and measure
the environmental effects that have made fracking
controversial.
The California Coastal Commission will insist that Long Beach
officials and their corporate partners running the city’s oil
islands obtain an additional permit before following through on
proposals to “frack” 13 local oil wells.
Hydraulic fracturing uses a host of highly toxic chemicals —
the impacts of which are for the most part unknown — that could
be contaminating drinking water supplies, wildlife and crops,
according to a report released Thursday by a California science
panel.
State officials on Wednesday formally adopted new rules
governing hydraulic fracturing in California, setting in motion
some of the toughest guidelines in the nation for the
controversial oil extraction practice.
In the end Senate Bill 4 regulating hydraulic fracturing
pleased neither environmentalists nor the oil and gas industry,
but supporters argue it imposes needed oversight by requiring
well permits, disclosure of what chemicals are used, water
testing and studies of fracking’s impact.
Environmentalists Tuesday called on Gov. Jerry Brown to halt
plans for months of hydraulic fracturing in the waters off
Southern California, warning that it could lead to chemical
pollution or an oil spill.
The more oil and gas companies pump their saltwater waste into
the ground, and the faster they do it, the more they have
triggered earthquakes in the central United States, a massive
new study found.
Looking not just at drilling jobs but at all related jobs —
truck drivers, truck manufacturers, petrochemical engineers and
more — [Harvard economist Michael] Porter says the rise of
fracking has added 2.7 million jobs to the economy, most of
them with good wages.
The Environmental Protection Agency has found no evidence that
fracking has let to widespread, systemic pollution of water.
Correspondent Jeff Brady tells NPR’s Rachel Martin what the
report means.
The Environmental Protection Agency, in a draft report
numbering more than 900 pages, said that while fracking
operations “have not led to widespread, systemic impacts on
drinking water resources, there are potential vulnerabilities
in the water lifecycle that could impact drinking water.”
Oil industry supporters rejoiced Thursday when a newly released
draft of an Environmental Protection Agency report found no
evidence that hydraulic fracturing does widespread damage to
drinking water.
Hydraulic fracturing to drill for oil and natural gas has not
caused widespread harm to drinking water in the United States,
the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday in a report
that also warned of potential contamination of water supplies
if safeguards are not maintained.
Gov. Jerry Brown may prove to be the greenest government
official in American history — emphasis on “may.” … But Brown
continues to support fracking in the state’s oil patch, and oil
production increases. … And even worse, fracking in a
time of drought is a remarkable obscenity.
Despite concerns from some residents, scientists say two recent
earthquakes centered in the Baldwin Hills area — including one
Sunday morning — do not appear to be connected to drilling
operations at nearby oil fields.
Many studies have linked the rise in small quakes to the
injection of wastewater into disposal wells, but the Geological
Survey’s report takes the first comprehensive look at where the
man-made quakes are occurring.
For the first time, the U.S. Geological Survey has unveiled a
map of earthquakes thought to be triggered by human activity in
the eastern and central United States.
After a relatively brief public hearing Tuesday, the Butte
County Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that would
ban the storage or disposal of fracking waste within the
county.
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management
recently released a final rule to provide new oversight over
hydraulic fracturing (commonly referred to as “fracking”) on
federal and tribal lands. Existing federal regulations, which
include a permit requirement for fracking activities, will
remain in place.
One month after mounting a legal challenge to San Benito
County’s ban on the controversial oil exploration practice of
fracking, a Southern California oil company has withdrawn its
lawsuit.
When Sen. Fran Pavley pushed the toughest fracking regulations
in the nation through the Legislature in 2013, she insisted on
requiring a statewide environmental impact review of the
practice.
The question of how the state’s petroleum companies should
dispose of wastewater that comes from the ground mixed with
newly pumped crude oil attracted a gathering of anti-fracking
protesters in Long Beach on Tuesday.
The Obama administration issued its first major fracking rules
on Friday with standards for wells on federal and Indian lands,
requiring disclosure of chemicals and covered storage of waste.
Reactivated faults that have produced thousands of Oklahoma
earthquakes are capable of causing larger seismic events,
according to U.S. Geological Survey research published today
[March 6] in Geophysical Research Letters. … Several
recent studies have linked Oklahoma earthquakes with the
injection of wastewater from enhanced oil and gas
exploration.
More data and research are necessary to best understand the
potential risks to water quality associated with unconventional
oil and gas development in the United States, according to a
recent U.S. Geological Survey study. “We mined the national
water-quality databases from 1970 – 2010 and were able to
assess long-term trends in only 16 percent of the watersheds
with unconventional oil and gas resources,” said Zack Bowen,
USGS scientist and principal author of the article that appears
in American Geophysical Union’s Water Resources Research.
An oil company has sued to block San Benito County’s
voter-approved fracking ban in a move that could affect the
growing trend of California cities and counties’ efforts to
stop the controversial oil drilling practice of hydraulic
fracturing.
It’s California’s other water problem – and, like the drought,
it poses a profound threat to our future. Every year the
state’s oil industry produces some 130 billion gallons of
wastewater.
A paper published today [Feb. 19] in Science provides a case
for increasing transparency and data collection to enable
strategies for mitigating the effects of human-induced
earthquakes caused by wastewater injection associated with oil
and gas production in the United States.
The wastewater from oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing and
other extraction processes is supposed to be injected only into
wells where the groundwater is already too toxic to be used for
drinking or irrigation, even if heavily treated.
Hoping to better understand the health effects of oil fracking,
the state in 2013 ordered oil companies to test the
chemical-laden waste water extracted from wells.
Rather than allowing activist-generated hype to cloud the
discussion (“It’s time for California to end risky fracking,”
Viewpoints, Feb. 4), Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature
focused on the expertise of scientists and approved the
nation’s toughest regulations for fracking while allowing it to
continue, as it has routinely since the 1950s.
At the end of last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned hydraulic
fracturing in New York, citing the threat it poses to public
health. … Here in California, however, fracking is already
happening and is poised to spread more widely.
Already regulars at the Capitol from protests during events
like the State of the State address, Californians Against
Fracking will once again be on the north steps at 11 a.m.,
calling upon Brown to follow New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s lead
and halt fracking.
A coalition of environmental groups concerned over the growing
use of fracking by the oil industry in Ventura County and
California met in Oxnard on Wednesday night, asking the crowd
to gather in Oakland in February to protest the practice.
Methane is emitted by cattle, landfills and leaky natural-gas
pipes, and the technology for reducing it is well within our
grasp. … Fracking is a major source of methane emissions as
well.
A state scientific review of what’s known about fracking in
California finds the controversial oil and gas production
technique is used in nearly half of all new wells, particularly
in four Kern county oil fields in the southern part of the San
Joaquin Valley.
California has shallow, vertical fracking wells that require
about 140,000 gallons of water per well to extract oil. That’s
millions of gallons less than other states. But the fluids
contain more concentrated chemicals.
About 20 percent of California’s oil and natural-gas production
uses hydraulic fracturing — with almost all of it happening in
one corner of the San Joaquin Valley — according to the most
authoritative survey yet released of fracking in the Golden
State.
Hydraulic fracturing unlocked oil at about half of the new
wells launched in California over the last decade, and the
practice will likely expand in a chunk of the San Joaquin
Valley, according to a new study required by the 2013 law to
regulate the practice.
Final regulations are now in place to establish what will
become the most comprehensive state oversight of hydraulic
fracturing in the nation, but two key parts of California’s
landmark 2013 law remain unfinished.
Not long after two mild earthquakes jolted the normally steady
terrain outside Youngstown, Ohio, last March, geologists
quickly decided that hydraulic fracturing operations at new
oil-and-gas wells in the area had set off the tremors.
President Obama’s chief custodian of federal lands says local
and regional bans on fracking are taking regulation of oil and
gas recovery in the wrong direction. “I would say that is the
wrong way to go,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told KQED in
an exclusive interview.
Handing environmentalists a breakthrough victory, New York
plans to prohibit fracking for natural gas because of what
regulators say are its unexplored health risks and dubious
economic benefits. … Environmental groups hope the New
York decision will influence Gov. Jerry Brown, who has largely
supported fracking.
Gov. Jerry Brown and the other West Coast leaders – Oregon Gov.
John Kitzhaber, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and British Columbia
Premier Christy Clark – who have pledged to solve global
warming deserve a heartfelt “thank you” from the people of
California and around the world, especially as Congress stalls
on climate change.
Despite the controversy, the state is working to develop
regulations for fracking, in which pressurized chemicals and
water are injected underground to dislodge gas trapped in rock
formations. … The State Water Resources Control Board hosts a
public workshop to discuss how and when sampling of groundwater
will be conducted, 8:30 a.m. at the Cal/EPA Building on I
Street.
