Tag Archives: fracking

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).

Quake experts think fracking maps may predict future temblors

Repost from the San Antonio Express-News 

Quake experts think fracking maps may predict future temblors

Experts creating models to gauge future activity

By Sean Cockerham, Tribune News Service Washington Bureau, April 23, 2015 10:02pm
Chad Devereaux works to clear up bricks that fell from three sides of his in-laws' home in Sparks, Okla, after two earthquakes hit the area in less than 24 hours in 2011. A government report released Thursday found that a dozen areas in the United States have been shaken in recent years by small earthquakes triggered by oil and gas drilling, Photo: Associated Press File Photo / AP
Chad Devereaux works to clear up bricks that fell from three sides of his in-laws’ home in Sparks, Okla, after two earthquakes hit the area in less than 24 hours in 2011. A government report released Thursday found that a dozen areas in the United States have been shaken in recent years by small earthquakes triggered by oil and gas drilling, Photo: Associated Press File Photo / AP

WASHINGTON — As earthquakes triggered by oil and gas operations shake the heartland, the federal government is scrambling to predict how strong the quakes will get and where they’ll strike.

The U.S. Geological Survey released maps Thursday that show 17 areas in eight states with increased rates of manmade earthquakes, including places such as North Texas, southern Kansas and Oklahoma where earthquakes were rare before fracking sparked a U.S. drilling boom in recent years.

Seismologists are using the maps in an attempt to create models that can predict the future of such quakes.

“These earthquakes are occurring at a higher rate than ever before and pose a much greater risk to people living nearby,” said Mark Petersen, chief of the USGS national seismic hazard modeling project.

Studies show the earthquakes primarily are caused by the injection of drilling wastewater from oil and gas operations into disposal wells, said Bill Ellsworth, a seismologist with the USGS.

The fact there have been many small earthquakes “raises the likelihood of larger earthquakes,” Ellsworth said. While most of the quakes have been modest, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake near Prague, Oklahoma, in 2011 destroyed 14 homes and was felt as far away as Milwaukee.

The USGS is working on a model, to be released at the end of the year, that can predict the hazards a year in advance.

People who live in areas with manmade quakes can use the forecasting information to upgrade structures to be safer and in order to learn what they should do in case of an earthquake, he said.

“Many of these earthquakes are now occurring in areas where people have not been familiar with earthquakes in the past,” Ellsworth said. “So there’s just a lot of basic education that is worth doing.”

The USGS maps show the earthquakes are mostly in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, but also Colorado, Ohio, Arkansas, Alabama and New Mexico.

“What we’ve seen is very, very large volumes of wastewater being injected over many different areas in the midcontinent, Oklahoma principally but also Kansas, Texas and other states,” Ellsworth said.

Fracking produces large amounts of wastewater, which oil and gas companies often pump deep underground as an economical way to dispose of it without contaminating fresh water. That raises the pressure underground and can effectively lubricate fault lines, weakening them and causing earthquakes.

While there was some initial skepticism, it’s become increasingly accepted that oil and gas activities are behind the surge in American earthquakes since 2008. Southern Methodist University researchers said in a research paper this week that these activities were the most likely cause of a rash of earthquakes that hit an area northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, from November 2013 to January 2014.

Oklahoma was rocked with nearly 600 earthquakes big enough for people to easily feel last year.

The Kansas Corporation Commission, a state regulatory agency, has responded to the earthquakes there with new rules that limit how much saltwater drilling waste can be injected underground. Ellsworth said seismic researchers were watching Kansas closely to see whether the new rules reduced the quakes.

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

Federal Fracking Ban Re-introduced: Protect Our Public Lands Act, H.R. 1902

Press release, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
[Editor: Food & Water Watch supports the bill with a petition here.  “We know that this is just a first step — that in this political climate it seems like it’s nearly impossible to move things forward — but together we can build momentum to protect the lands that are such an important part of our country.”  – RS]

On Earth Day Pocan and Schakowsky Introduce Strongest Federal Fracking Ban in the U.S.

WASHINGTON, DC — On Earth Day, U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), members of the Safe Climate Caucus, introduced the Protect Our Public Lands Act, H.R. 1902. The legislation is the strongest anti-fracking bill introduced in Congress to date and would ban fracking on public lands.

“Our national parks, forests and public lands are some of our most treasured places and need to be protected for future generations,” said Rep. Mark Pocan. “It is clear fracking has a detrimental impact on the environment and there are serious safety concerns associated with these type of wells. Until we fully understand the effects, the only way to avoid these risks is to halt fracking entirely. We should not allow short-term economic gain to harm our public lands, damage our communities or endanger workers.”

“Today is Earth Day – a time to renew our commitment to protecting the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we all call home,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky. ‘Our public lands have been preserved and protected by the federal government for over one hundred years.  We owe it to future generations to maintain their natural beauty and rich biodiversity.  I believe the only way to do that is to enact the Protect Our Public Lands Act, and I will continue to fight to see that happen.”

“Our public lands are a shared national heritage, and shouldn’t be polluted, destroyed, and fracked to enrich the oil and gas industry,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. “Ironically, the President is speaking in the Everglades today, a unique and fragile ecosystem that is threatened by nearby fracking on public land. Congress must follow Congressman Pocan and Congresswoman Schakowsky’s bold leadership and ban fracking on these lands, so that future generations can enjoy these special places.”

Mounting evidence shows that fracking threatens our air, water and public health. To make matters worse, reports have shown that existing fracking wells on public lands aren’t being adequately inspected, creating even more potential for disastrous accidents. Right now, about 90 percent of federally managed lands are available for oil and gas leasing, while only 10 percent are reserved for conservation, recreation, wildlife and cultural heritage.

The Protect our Public Lands Act, H.R. 1902 prohibits fracking, the use of fracking fluid, and acidization for the extraction of oil and gas on public lands for any lease issued, renewed, or readjusted. The legislation is endorsed by the Food and Water Watch, the American Sustainable Business Council, Environment America, Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity, Progressive Democrats of America.