Armen Nahabedian argued there is an abundance of misinformation being circulated about the oil industry, particularly his Project Indian endeavor proposing to use steam injections for extraction.
Mary Hsia-Coron, a retired Hewlett-Packard employee living in the Aromas area, contended that stream injections, fracking and other oil-industry practices are a threat to the local environment such as potential impacts to groundwater. She is a leader in the San Benito Rising organization pursuing a stringent new set of oil rules through a measure on the November ballot.
The two are at polar ends of the debate already brewing furiously in San Benito County seven months before the election. The San Benito Rising group – which initially alleged Project Indian had plans to use hydraulic fracturing in Pinnacles National Park, which is not the case – has been circulating a petition and has obtained more than double the necessary signatures to get a proposed ban certified for the ballot. The group is joining outside organizations such as the Food & Water Watch and the Sierra Club in the early stages of a campaign to ban fracking countywide and other petroleum activities in rural residential zones.
Nahabedian, Ojai-based Citadel Exploration President and CEO, referred to the San Benito Rising group’s messages as “deception” and “hyperbole.” He emphasized that Project Indian and its use of steam injections – one of the major inspirations for San Benito Rising’s pursuit of a ballot measure, along with surveying done on Granterock land in Aromas – has nothing to do with fracking.
“There’s been a lot of casting of a lot of misinformation,” the Citadel CEO said.
Hsia-Coron grouped steam injections in with other forms of extraction like acidizing as “hybrids” of fracking. She countered the misinformation claim by underscoring that the proposal would not ban petroleum activities outright. They would be allowed, for instance, in agricultural or rangeland zones.
She mentioned how many of the county’s 336 wells – about 30 are active – have been explored previously and need use of “re-stimulation” extraction techniques.
“The thing that worries us is these new techniques involve going to old wells,” she said. “It’s called re-stimulating them.”
They are the types of themes – the environment, oil-industry practices and property rights – likely to define the campaigns leading up to November. For opponents to fracking and other oil exploration, their organized effort started at a June meeting in San Juan Bautista, said Hsia-Coron. It was after the local debate over private surveying in the Aromas area and the adoption of a strict oil and gas ban in Santa Cruz County.
Opponents such as Hsia-Coron point to the county’s designation as a “high-resources area” over the vast Monterey Shale – and a concern about the potential for increased exploration activity.
Nahabedian said hype has been overblown not just about the massive Monterey Shale – he doesn’t believe technology is advanced enough to recover most of the deposits – but also about the use of steam injections.
He explained the history of oil production in San Benito County dating back to the early 1900s. He said the shallow, heavy oil here is largely stuck in sand deposits and that the immobile source cannot contaminate the water table below.
“We’re in no way possible in any sort of communication with anything they’re going to use for natural drinking water or anything,” he said.
Steaming as a whole is “much different” than fracking and it is “benign” in comparison, he said. It involves a lot less water than fracking, while his company is “cautiously optimistic” about eventually implementing a de-osmosis process to clean and re-use the production water.
Citadel Exploration leases nearly 700 acres for Project Indian, with up to 100 million barrels of oil in the ground below, according to the company website.
“We’re bringing in clean, fresh water, heating that water up so it turns to steam and putting it into the ground where our oil is,” Nahabedian said.
San Benito Rising isn’t buying it. The group is steadfast against steam injections, while trumping the cause against fracking and other petroleum activities in their campaign efforts.
Hsia-Coron responded to the Citadel CEO’s statement made at last week’s chamber of commerce candidates forum – where the CEO said the ban proposal is grouping in all petroleum activity with fracking – and she noted that San Benito Rising’s proposal would limit those restrictions to rural residential zones.
Oil operations would be allowed in agricultural or manufacturing zones, she said.
“It’s heavy industrial activity that’s really not appropriate to residential (areas),” Hsia-Coron said.
She and San Benito Rising have backing in their cause as well. Along with the group’s Santa Cruz attorneys, its members have coordinated with such groups as the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org, she said, along with residents such as organic farmer Paul Hain, grass-fed beef rancher Joe Morris and Josh Fox, director of the film “Gasland”. As for money, she did not specify donors but acknowledged receiving “some donations.” The group, in running a campaign, will have to disclose donation information as the election cycle unfolds.
“I myself feel we should pursue alternative energy,” Hsia-Coron said, adding that humans are pushing limits with climate change.
She noted how her home is solar powered, while she and her husband have an electric car. She did acknowledge using a gas-powered vehicle.
“Yeah, I do have a Prius,” she said. “I have one van I use at Thanksgiving. That’s the gas car.”
She said if there was an electric truck, she would buy one.
“I’m seriously concerned about my children’s future,” she said. “I think we’re now at a point where it’s a moral issue.”
Nahabedian emphasized that his project is relatively small in nature. He said his company needs to “sharp shoot” in order to find viable sources. This area doesn’t carry the prospect for the types of operations that span 50,000 to 70,000 acres and called such projects “impossible” here.
As for the Project Indian extraction technology, he said 60 percent of oil projects in California use steaming.
“We have to go out and we have to find new reserves here in California only and attempt to demonstrate the commercial viability of those reserves,” he said. “The reality is, exploration is just that. We’re venturing into the unknown. That’s what explorers do.”
