Tag Archives: Benzene

Air Quality, Big Oil, California Division of Oil Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), Drought, Fracking, Injection wells, Oil industry lobby, Public Health, State regulation, Toxic waste, Water contamination

Mr. Governor, kill the oil ‘watchdog’ – Tom Hayden on California’s pathetic fracking regulator

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle

Watchdog or lapdog of Big Oil?

By Tom Hayden, April 24, 2015 4:32pm
LOST HILLS, CA - MARCH 24: The sun rises over an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the verge of a boom on March 24, 2014 near Lost Hills, California. Critics of fracking in California cite concerns over water usage and possible chemical pollution of ground water sources as California farmers are forced to leave unprecedented expanses of fields fallow in one of the worst droughts in California history. Concerns also include the possibility of earthquakes triggered by the fracking process which injects water, sand and various chemicals under high pressure into the ground to break the rock to release oil and gas for extraction though a well. The 800-mile-long San Andreas Fault runs north and south on the western side of the Monterey Formation in the Central Valley and is thought to be the most dangerous fault in the nation. Proponents of the fracking boom saying that the expansion of petroleum extraction is good for the economy and security by developing more domestic energy sources and increasing gas and oil exports. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Photo: David McNew, Getty Images
LOST HILLS, CA – MARCH 24: The sun rises over an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the verge of a boom on March 24, 2014 near Lost Hills, California. Critics of fracking in California cite concerns over water usage and possible chemical pollution of ground water sources as California farmers are forced to leave unprecedented expanses of fields fallow in one of the worst droughts in California history. Concerns also include the possibility of earthquakes triggered by the fracking process which injects water, sand and various chemicals under high pressure into the ground to break the rock to release oil and gas for extraction though a well. The 800-mile-long San Andreas Fault runs north and south on the western side of the Monterey Formation in the Central Valley and is thought to be the most dangerous fault in the nation. Proponents of the fracking boom saying that the expansion of petroleum extraction is good for the economy and security by developing more domestic energy sources and increasing gas and oil exports. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Jerry Brown perhaps should put his DOGGR to sleep. Not his family dog, Sutter, but DOGGR — the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources — the 100-year-old agency that’s been handing out permits for drilling in the Central Valley without records, oversight or enforcement of 21st century environmental laws.

The agency was created prior to Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, “Oil!,” on which Daniel Day-Lewis’ 2007 film, “There Will Be Blood,” was based. Oil was to California what cotton was to Mississippi, a booming industry based on subsistence labor, migration, racism, vigilantism, and government officials looking the other way.

Oil wells in the Midway-Sunset oil field in Fellows (Kern County). Monterey Shale, largely untouched territory near Midway-Sunset, could represent the future of California's oil industry and a potential arena for conflict between drillers and the state’s powerful environmental interests. Photo: Jim Wilson, New York Times
Oil wells in the Midway-Sunset oil field in Fellows (Kern County). Monterey Shale, largely untouched territory near Midway-Sunset, could represent the future of California’s oil industry and a potential arena for conflict between drillers and the state’s powerful environmental interests. Photo: Jim Wilson, New York Times

Times change but slowly. Current Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, who says Kern ought to be a county in Arizona, opposes President Obama’s immigrant-rights policy. There are an estimated 66,000 undocumented immigrants in Kern County, whose population is majority Latino. More than 22 percent of its people live below the poverty line, 69 percent of them within one mile of an oil well.

The barren place is a bit like Mississippi in the ’60s, powerful enough to defy progressive norms or laws on the national level. The federal government in 1982 transferred its power to California to monitor and regulate the 42,000 injection wells that dump toxic waste fluids into groundwater. That monitoring didn’t happen, a lapse that the feds say is shocking. The human carcinogen benzene has been detected in fracking wastewater at levels 700 times over federal safety standards. Health impact studies are inadequate, but Kern community hospital managers say the county has one of the highest cancer rates in the country, which is expected to double in 10 years.

How did it happen that the Obama Environmental Protection Agency is pushing the Jerry Brown EPA to comply with modern environmental law? The same Gov. Jerry Brown signed that 1982 agreement, giving Big Oil an opportunity to oversee itself. Those were the days when President Ronald Reagan’s Anne Gorsuch ran the federal EPA, perhaps convincing California that it could do a better job.

As a result of the 1982 transfer, the feds say California has failed at oversight and record-keeping. With the feds watching, the state has two years to implement a meaningful monitoring plan.

Brown has tried to fix the problem, which undercuts his claim that drilling and controversial fracking can be addressed by beefed up regulations instead of a moratorium on fracking that most environmentalists want. He has added more professional staff to DOGGR and installed a new director, Steve Bohlen, who promises to clean up the place. Since last summer, the agency has shut down 23 injection wells out of 2,500.

The preference of one experienced state official is to peel back DOGGR, move it to Cal EPA and turning it into a real regulatory agency instead of a lapdog for the oil industry. But Brown officials prefer the uphill task of reforming DOGGR from within, and have signaled they will veto any bill that brings the agency under state EPA jurisdiction. The Legislature is going along with his incremental approach, so far.

The task will be daunting. The DOGGR mandate has been to drill, baby, drill, says state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara. DOGGR’s legal mandate calls for “increasing the ultimate recovery of underground hydrocarbons,” not determining whether drilling or fracking are sustainable and safe for aquifers or human health. Her SB545 is still a work in progress, however. It stops the archaic custom of drilling permits being obtained and accepted without any written approvals or findings, which upsets the feds and shuts out the public. Until recently, an oil company simply gave notice of its intent to drill and was entitled to proceed unless the agency said no in writing within 10 days. Under Jackson’s bill, an application to drill will require written approval, and the paperwork will be posted on the DOGGR website. In addition, the bill will limit the Kern custom of keeping records about chemicals and water impacts confidential, even when a well has gone into production.

However, the bill’s language makes oversight optional by saying that DOGGR “may” require an operator to implement a monitoring plan. Decision-making power is devolved to the division district deputy in Kern, which is like expecting a Mississippi sheriff to carry out federal law in 1964 — or the present Kern sheriff to enforce immigration law today. Nor does the bill give the state EPA or health experts any shared authority in the permitting process.

Well derricks crowd the Kern River oil field in Bakersfield in 1912. Photo: Chevron, SFC
Well derricks crowd the Kern River oil field in Bakersfield in 1912. Photo: Chevron, SFC

At the heart of the scandal is the historic power of Big Oil against the emergence of California’s clean-energy economy with its priorities of renewable resources and efficiency. The Democratic majority in Sacramento is hobbled by a pro-drilling contingent, led by Republicans with a number of Central Valley Democrats. The oil lobby spent $9 million in 2014 in a failed attempt to exempt themselves from the state’s cap-and-trade law. The effort was led by Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, along with 16 Democratic legislators. In a more striking example, state Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Bakersfield, left his seat in 2013 to begin lobbying for Chevron, one of the major firms along with Occidental Petroleum operating in Kern’s oil fields. The oil lobby is spending large sums to cultivate friendly Democratic candidates and underwrite advertising campaigns warning of a “hidden gas tax” if their privileges are threatened.

Many Sacramento insiders believe that Brown has made concessions to Big Oil in order to protect his considerable progress toward clean-energy goals while not confronting the industry the way he took on the nuclear lobby in the ’70s. That’s understandable, if it works. Now, however, his regulatory reputation needs rebuilding. What if his DOGGR won’t hunt? What if it’s beyond reform? What will the governor and Legislature do if facing open defiance from the powers that be in Kern on a range of issues from clean air and water to the protection of children’s health to environmental justice? With the drought on everyone’s mind, can he allow the state’s aquifers to be threatened by the carcinogenic wastewater of oil production?

The DOGGR scandal drills deeply into the foundations on which state politics are built.

Tom Hayden writes, speaks and consults on climate politics and serves on the editorial board of the Nation. His latest book is “Listen Yankee!: Why Cuba Matters.” (Seven Stories Press, 2015).
Big Oil, Earth Day, Farming, Fracking, Ground water contamination, Injection wells

Earth Day: Tell Big Oil to knock it off – plug-and-play tweets and posts

Repost from Stop Fooling California (On Twitter)
[Editor:  Some thoughtful and clever images below.  Repost wherever….  – RS]

Stop Fooling California

April 23, 2015

Stop Fooling CAYesterday we celebrated the 45th anniversary of Earth Day.

And you can’t think of the earth without thinking about the way Big Oil’s business model is based on exploiting resources that belong to us all.

Case in point: Kern County’s depleting oil fields is a symptom of ecological overshooting. And Big Oil adds insult to injury when they contaminate our precious water supply with their toxic waste.
Perhaps actor Ed Begley, Jr., summed it up best, “I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.”

This Earth Day let’s tell Big Oil to knock it off – for the sake of every person living here. Find plug-and-play tweets and posts below to help get the word out.

Embedded image permalinkTwitter: #BigOil is contaminating CA’s aquifers. Shut them down #waternotoil #StopFoolingCA  @cleanh2oca pic.twitter.com/rvN1Ye4hOD
Facebook:  Everyday, the oil industry is contaminating California’s aquifers.
#WaterNotOil
Embedded image permalinkTwitter: #BigOil illegally dumps chemical waste in hundreds of unlined pits in #Kern. #WaterNotOil #CAdrought #StopFoolingCA pic.twitter.com/ZiDDiXcY9W
Facebook:  Big Oil illegally dumps chemical waste into hundreds of unlined pits in Kern County. You know, so it can seep back into the ground.Why? How do you dispose of your toxic waste?#WaterNotOil
Embedded image permalinkTwitter: #BigOil’s waste forced farmers 2 pull up crops. Just. Stop it. #WaterNotOil #StopFoolingCA pic.twitter.com/pomWu2PSwg
Facebook:  Mike Hopkins had to pull up his cherry trees in 2013 and filed a lawsuit against the oil companies with injection wells around his orchards.“We’re farmers,” Hopkins said. Pulling up the withered fruit trees “broke our hearts.”
Read about Mike here: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/3489997-181/california-allowed-oilfield-dumping-into?page=3
Embedded image permalinkTwitter:Of all the ways to waste water, #fracking is definitely the dumbest. http://bit.ly/1DpwYyo #StopFoolingCA #CADrought pic.twitter.com/vvUeOsZdjH
Facebook:
Out of all the ways to waste water in California, oil extraction is possibly the worst and definitely the dumbest.
#StopFoolingCA
Embedded image permalinkTwitter: Looks like an action movie. It’s actually just @BP_Press making “safe” #energy http://lat.ms/1zCsbEQ pic.twitter.com/3FKIwIkKYM
Facebook:  It’s been five years since BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and spilling millions of gallons of crude oil.Yet the risk to the Gulf of Mexico is as high as ever.How’d Big Oil pull that off?http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0420-smith-bp-20150420-story.html
Embedded image permalinkTwitter: “Toxic chemicals #BigOil pumps into our water a #tradesecret.” -Nobody ever. #StopFoolingCA http://bit.ly/1INhS5H  pic.twitter.com/yMhlCnk6nf
Facebook:  We respect intellectual property. For example, McDonald’s doesn’t need to tell us what’s in its secret sauce (although we know it’s just Thousand Island Dressing, right?).But you know what we can’t respect? Not telling us what toxic chemicals you’re pumping into our water because it’s a ‘trade secret.’ That’s not your water, Big Oil.http://bit.ly/1INhS5H
#ShutThemDown #WaterNotOil #StopFoolingCA
California Regulation, Fracking, Oil Industry, Water quality

Hundreds of illicit oil wastewater pits found in Kern County

Repost from The Los Angeles Times
Editor: See also LA Times follow-up stories: 2/27/15, Who’s behind the chemical-laden water pits in Kern County? and 2/28/15 Jerry Brown must enforce California’s environmental laws.   

Hundreds of illicit oil wastewater pits found in Kern County

By Julie Cart,   2/26/15 10:10PM
Oil wells
Pits containing production water from oil wells in Kern County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Water officials in Kern County discovered that oil producers have been dumping chemical-laden wastewater into hundreds of unlined pits that are operating without proper permits.

Inspections completed this week by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board revealed the existence of more than 300 previously unidentified waste sites. The water board’s review found that more than one-third of the region’s active disposal pits are operating without permission.

The pits raise new water quality concerns in a region where agricultural fields sit side by side with oil fields and where California’s ongoing drought has made protecting groundwater supplies paramount.

Clay Rodgers, assistant executive officer of the water board’s Fresno office, called the unregulated pits a “significant problem” and said the agency expects to issue as many as 200 enforcement orders.

State regulators face federal scrutiny for what critics say has been decades of lax oversight of the oil and gas industry and fracking operations in particular. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has admitted that for years it allowed companies to inject fracking wastewater into protected groundwater aquifers, a problem they attributed to a history of chaotic record-keeping.

“The state doesn’t seem to be willing to put the protection of groundwater and water quality ahead of the oil industry being able to do business as usual,” said Andrew Grinberg of the group Clean Water Action.

The pits — long, shallow troughs gouged out of dirt — hold water that is produced from fracking and other oil drilling operations. The water forced out of the ground during oil operations is heavily saline and often contains benzene and other naturally occurring but toxic compounds.

Regional water officials said they believe that none of the pits in the county have linings that would prevent chemicals from seeping into groundwater beneath them. Some of the pits also lack netting or covers to protect migrating birds or other wildlife.

Currently, linings for pits are not required, though officials said they will consider requiring them in the future. Covers are mandated in some instances.

The pits are a common site on the west side of Bakersfield’s oil patch. In some cases, waste facilities contain 40 or more pits, arranged in neat rows. Kern County accounts for at least 80% of California’s oil production.

The facilities are close to county roads but partially hidden behind earthen berms. At one pit this week, waves of heat rose from newly dumped water, and an acrid, petroleum smell hung in the air.

Rodgers said Thursday that the agency’s review found 933 pits, or sumps, in Kern County. Of those, 578 are active and 355 are not currently used.

Of the active pits, 370 have permits to operate and 208 do not. All of the pits have now been inspected, he said.

The possible existence of hundreds of unpermitted pits came to light when regional water officials compared their list of pit operators to a list compiled by the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. The oil regulator’s list contained at least 300 more waste pits than water officials had permitted, Rodgers said.

His staff began inspecting the wastewater sites in April. Initial testing of water wells has not revealed any tainted water, he said.

The pits are an inexpensive disposal method for an enormous volume of water that is forced out of the ground during drilling or other operations, such as fracking. Rodgers said that just one field, the McKittrick Oil Field, produces 110,000 barrels of wastewater a day. According to figures from 2013, oil operations in Kern County produce 80 billion gallons of such wastewater — an amount that if clean would supply nearly a half-million households for a year.

More than 2,000 pits have been dredged over decades of oil operations in Kern County, according to water board records. Oil field companies have not always properly disposed of water, Rodgers said. As recently as the 1980s, it was customary to dump wastewater into drainage canals that line the San Joaquin Valley’s agricultural fields.

But using unlined pits to dispose of wastewater is becoming less common. Some states ban the practice, and many in the oil and gas industry do not consider it effective.

The water board’s long-term plan to address the problem includes requiring remediation of some abandoned pits so that contaminants left behind don’t pollute the air, Rodgers said.

In pits located near clean water sources, Rodgers said, operators will be required to install monitor wells to test water quality. The companies will pay for the testing and provide the results to water officials.

The water board will publish a series of general orders that he said will more tightly control the operation of wastewater pits.

“Our goal is to protect water quality,” Rodgers said. “Our goal is not to shut anybody down, but by the same token, they do not own the waters beneath them. Those waters are for the public good.”

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Oil spill, Rail inspection, Tank car design

May 9 derailment in Colorado: TV news expose

Repost from KDVR Fox31 Denver
[Editor: This investigative report details a May 9,  2014 derailment and a previous derailment in the exact same location, highly toxic benzene contamination of groundwater and slow notification of local first responders by Union Pacific.  (Apologies for the video’s commercial content.)  – RS] 

Derailed: Railroad delays first responders on riverside oil spill

September 22, 2014, by Chris Halsne

DENVER — FOX31 Denver has confirmed a May 9 crude oil train car derailment near LaSalle, Colorado polluted area groundwater with toxic levels of benzene.

Environmental Protection Agency records from July show benzene measurements as high as 144 parts per billion near the crash site. Five parts per billion is considered the safe limit.

Federal accident records also show six Union Pacific tankers ripped apart from the train and flipped into a ditch due to a “track misalignment caused by a soft roadbed.” One of the tankers cracked and spilled approximately7,000 gallons of Niobrara crude, according to the EPA.

FOX31 Denver’s investigative team also confirmed the oil car accident location, only about 75 yards from the South Platte River, is in the same spot as another Union Pacific derailment four years ago.

Reports show four rail cars full of wheat/grain derailed in October 2010. The cause of that accident was very similar: “roadbed settled or soft” and “other rail and joint bar defects.”

“They did have a derailment at the exact same point. I mean within feet!” witness Glenn Werning, a nearby farmer and local water supervisor, told FOX31 Denver investigative reporter Chris Halsne.

Werning wonders if Union Pacific was negligent in repairing the area after the first crash telling Halsne, “It would have been devastating if it had gotten into the water and flowed down. It would have been, whew! The oil spill would have been a mess to clean up because it would have been on both sides of the river for miles.”

Union Pacific declined FOX31 Denver’s repeated requests for an on-camera interview, but a spokesperson, Mark Davis, sent a statement which says in part:

“The line where the derailment occurred is visually inspected one time per week. The maximum speed limit on the line is 20 mph.  Prior to the derailment the track was visually inspected on April 26, April 28, May 1 and May 5 with no exceptions taken. Our track team visually inspects about 15,500 miles of track daily on our 32,000 mile network in 23 states – this translates into 5.7 million miles annually of visional track inspections.”

There is currently no way to double-check the accuracy or completeness of Union Pacific’s statement because private railroads are allowed to conduct their own safety inspections and keep such records private.

Federal law only allows the Federal Railroad Administration to audit railroad inspections to make sure “the owner of the track” is conducting them appropriately.

However, at least in Colorado, that has not been done for at least three years.

FOX31 Denver’s investigative team sent Freedom of Information Act requests asking how often the FRA audited private railroad safety inspections in Colorado. The answer: From January 1, 2012 to March, 2014 is zero.

San Francisco-based Environmental Attorney and Sierra Club activist, Devorah Ancel, says the fact that private railroads conduct their own rail line and rail car safety inspections with very little federal oversight is a growing problem.

Ancel told FOX31 Denver, “The rail industry wants to get as much of this crude to market as quickly as possible. The more the federal government cracks down on safety standards, inspections, on audits, the more they are going to push back because it`s going to affect their bottom line.”

Ancel is part of a group also pressing the Department of Transportation for improvements in the design of hazardous liquid-carrying rail cars. Currently most crude oil travels across tracks in older-model containers called DOT 111’s.

According to federal authorities, the Union Pacific oil tanker which rolled, cracked and then spewed thousands of gallons of crude onto the ground in May’s accident is considered a DOT 111 design.

“This is extremely volatile crude. The tank cars have thin shells. They have thin head shields that are known to puncture during derailment. They have valves that sheer off and puncture during derailment,” Ancel says.

As if multiple derailments in the same place, unverified safety inspections, and outdated oil tanker containers were not enough of a reason for public concern, FOX31 Denver also discovered that Union Pacific officials are being accused of delaying telling local emergency responders about the latest oil car derailment.

According to Weld County Emergency Manager Roy Rudisill, Union Pacific first rallied its own crews to the scene before putting local firefighters in the loop.

Halsne asked, “Were they a little late to let you know?” Rudisill answered, “In my opinion, yes!”

We checked. According to a federal report, the accident happened at around 8 a.m. on May 9.

FOX31 Denver pulled call logs surrounding the accident and found Union Pacific first notified the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at 9:10 am.

Radio traffic shows Weld County fire crews and emergency managers were still scrambling another hour later, trying to figure out exactly where the accident had occurred and whether oil was leaking into the South Platte River.

Rudisill told FOX31 Denver, “A quicker phone call, quicker communication, faster communication to local jurisdiction would have been prudent in my opinion. Now we’ve had two incidents out there. What can we do to make sure the proper actions are taking place so we don’t have another one?”

Werning hates to lay blame entirely on Union Pacific admitting “accidents do happen,” but he`s closely watching their latest track repair efforts, never again wanting to count on “pure luck” as a disaster prevention plan.

“Had they perhaps done a better repair (after the first derailment), they wouldn`t have dropped those cars,” Werning said.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it continues to monitor the groundwater contamination issue. Monitoring wells have been installed in the area surrounding the oil spill. Benzene is a common chemical in oil and gasoline and it does naturally dissipate over time.