Local resident Larry Rebecchi recalled when Measure J supporters started gathering signatures last summer in their effort to ban hydraulic fracturing and other enhanced forms of extraction practices used by the oil industry to unlock shale deposits, particularly those in the massive Monterey Shale formation.
Note: This is part four in a four-part series. See the other parts at left.
Local resident Larry Rebecchi recalled when Measure J supporters started gathering signatures last summer in their effort to ban hydraulic fracturing and other enhanced forms of extraction practices used by the oil industry to unlock shale deposits, particularly those in the massive Monterey Shale formation.
“At that time, there was an outstanding thought in the petroleum industry – that fracking the Monterey Shale was a feasible possibility,” said Rebecchi, a retired teacher and part of the Protect San Benito group floating the proposed ban on the November ballot.
He explained that the group went ahead and proposed fracking, cyclic steam injections and well acidizing in the measure as prohibited practices.
“It turns out, because of the geologic formation, it’s not really feasible at this point,” Rebecchi said, referring to an Energy Information Administration report issued in May decreasing the estimate of recoverable oil in the shale from close to 14 billion barrels to about 600 million. “Go back and research it. You’re going to find petroleum engineers stating, ‘We will develop the technology to make it feasible, economical to exploit the Monterey Shale.’”
Patriot Resources’ production in the Vallecitos field of southeastern San Benito County is an example in which fracking or other forms of extraction aren’t necessary, because his four active wells produce a thinner oil than other areas locally.
Coombs contended that Measure J supporters “are not grounded in reality” – as recent studies, including one from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, have concluded fracking is a relatively safe method of extraction – and that enhanced methods have been “standard, everyday practices” for decades in California.
“Since fracking isn’t occurring in San Benito County and no one’s proposing it, we can shift away from that and let’s focus on what the real effects are for us in our county,” Coombs said, pointing to Citadel Exploration’s proposed Project Indian in the Bitterwater area and its estimate for up to 1,000 wells, along with his smaller development at Vallecitos.
While the county’s Measure J debate has focused on a variety of themes such as economic impacts and political influence, environmental issues are at the core. Concerns arising in mid-2012 over speculation about possible fracking in Aromas – surveying work at Graniterock’s quarry site there hasn’t resulted in any further exploration – sparked seeds in the campaign to get an initiative on the November ballot. Those behind the efforts later turned their attention to Citadel’s plans to use cyclic steaming at Project Indian, though the measure’s opposition has continually pointed out that most oil activity in California involves some form of enhanced extraction technology.
Measure J would ban fracking, cyclic steaming and acidizing as forms of oil extraction effective Jan. 1. Additionally, it would ban all petroleum activities in rural residential zones, which are pockets surrounding Hollister and San Juan Bautista making up less than 10 percent of the county. Existing projects affected by the initiative would get one to three years to comply.
As it pertains to environmental issues, supporters have made arguments that include: Toxic chemicals used in fracking potentially cause cancer and other illnesses; fracking poses risks of contamination into aquifers and watersheds; the practice can cause earthquakes; enhanced extraction methods use too much water; they bring impacts to the landscapes and roads; and there would be impacts to species such as the endangered California condor at Pinnacles National Park, within 10 miles of Citadel’s project.
Measure opponents have contended fracking has been proven as relatively safe when compared with other extraction practices; there is no fracking in the county, where the geology isn’t conducive to using it; enhanced methods such as steaming are common, safe industry practices; water aquifers are separated from oil wells by hundreds of feet; and that water used in enhanced extraction is insignificant, especially compared with a farming industry that relies on the resource.
Both sides also have claimed that outside influences – big oil companies and large environmental groups – have driven the messages to this point. Rebecchi and others have pointed to millions of dollars donated by oil companies to a statewide effort against such local ordinances as the one in San Benito County and others in Santa Barbara and Butte counties. He said many landowners may not realize that they don’t even own the mineral rights to their properties. Rather, oil and rail companies and others have the authority to drill for those prospects.
“There’s not much upside for the general population of San Benito County,” he said.
Rebecchi claimed oil-heavy Kern County has some of the highest cancer rates and worst air and water quality in the nation. He said San Ardo in southern Monterey County – where oil producers use cyclic steaming – may seem relatively clean to those on the outside.
“But not when you get off the main road and into the hills,” he said. “It’s pretty expansive.”
Coombs defended what he called “very standard techniques” cited in Measure J. He said modern technologies used in wells and casings – used to seal them off from potential contamination – prevent problems cited by Protect San Benito as potential risks. He also mentioned how local water aquifers are “very shallow” and his drilling goes thousands of feet below the surface.
He said there have been more than 200 wells drilled in the Vallecitos field since the 1940s and 1950s.
“Have you heard of a single incident of an environmental problem with over 200 wells drilled?” he said. “And the answer is, you haven’t because there hasn’t been any.”
He pointed to involvement from the Center for Biological Diversity – which sued the county last year over Project Indian’s lacking environmental review for an exploratory well – as an example of an outside influence driving the local pro-measure effort. Measure opponents believe this could be the start of a county-by-county push since there is no statewide moratorium or anything like it on the horizon.
“For some reason these folks are calling out this as being high intensity. I really don’t understand what their motivations are,” Coombs said. “At a high level, I look at them as anti-fossil fuel people.”
Often cited by measure critics has been another out-of-county participant – the San Francisco law firm hired by Protect San Benito, then called San Benito Rising, to write the proposed initiative. Critics have chastised similarities between the local initiative and the one in Santa Barbara County such as each including bans against those three enhanced extraction practices.
Catherine Engberg is a partner at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, which drafted the initiative at the local group’s request. She acknowledged the San Benito and Santa Barbara ordinances are similar and suggested the groups in each county “talk to each other.”
“We were approached by the clients,” she said. “We don’t have any agenda in terms of what they should or what they should not do. I think a lot of the goals of the groups are very similar.”
She noted differences in the two counties’ ordinances such as the all-out petroleum ban in rural residential zones near cities – included in the measure here but not there – and how Santa Barbara’s proposal would “basically vest” all existing projects, which isn’t the case in this county.
“I certainly feel this is very strongly community driven, grassroots driven,” she said.
Joe Morris is about as grassroots as they come. The fifth-generation local actually raises grassfed cattle – which involves such requirements as maintaining an all-natural diet, having cattle in open spaces and staying away from antibiotics or hormones, according to the American Grassfed Association – in the San Juan area and he has been an outspoken supporter of the measure.
Morris has been an active participant in debating over the measure in public. He and others on both sides of the issue spoke at Tuesday’s county board meeting, after a presentation from a state conservation department official who said enhanced extraction practices make up 51 percent of all petroleum activity in California.
“First of all, I wasn’t able to be here for the whole thing,” Morris said of the state official’s presentation. “I was pumping water for our cows. Last year, I had to haul water, 3,000 gallons a day for about 60 days for our cattle. I really understand, in a visceral way, the preciousness of water.”
He said there are “very limited” sources of data on the newer technologies and a lot of the data is produced by oil companies. He underscored how smaller companies are “not up to speed” in reporting data so far to the state since interim SB-4 rules were enacted in January.
“That’s who we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with the small companies,” he said.
Morris said there is “plenty of evidence to be skeptical.”
Jeff Cattaneo, manager for the San Benito County Water District, is on the other side of the fence, at least as it pertains to water use.
“If you use San Benito Rising’s estimate of two million gallons of water per day for the entire state, that works out to about 2,240 acre-feet of water a year,” he said.
Cattaneo went on to say the entire state uses 42 million acre-feet of water per year.
“So it’s really insignificant if you look at the total water used,” he said.
He said he has not heard reports of contamination in the county’s existing, albeit relatively minuscule, oil industry. Any potential issues would be reported to the state water board, which would in turn report it to his district.
“They have never sent me anything that said there has been a contaminated site due to oil exploration,” Cattaneo said. “There has been a lot from munitions, a lot from gas stations. There is a lot of contamination from a lot of different activities we engage in as human beings. It’s a risk-based system.”
He said his district’s focus is ensuring groundwater is protected.
“We just want to make sure the groundwater is protected,” he said. “There are different ways to make sure the groundwater is protected.”
Greg Swett, owner of nut orchards in Paicines, said he is “dumbfounded” regarding supporters’ motivations on Measure J. He also knows a lot about wells, being a farmer in south San Benito County. He compared the need for acidizing in wells – the initiative would ban the practice in oil activities – to the use of the same chemicals in a pool or the process of cleaning out a coffee machine due to buildup inside. He said relatively small amounts of acid are used and do very little to change pH levels of acidity in the water.
He also mentioned how he still buys gas “by the truckload” for his farming operation.
“If we want to go back to a picture of my father where everybody is just incredibly poor, we can do that,” Swett said.
Andy Hsia-Coron, one of the leaders behind the Measure J effort, has continually pointed to that agriculture industry in saying he believes it and tourism can be driving forces for the local economy.
He remains concerned about potential environmental impacts, particularly prospects for contamination into watersheds leading to the ocean, effects from wastewater injections back into the ground, earthquake dangers and his doubts regarding the notion about no fracking here.
“I’m not aware that the oil industry ever tells us what their plans are,” he said. “I think if you ask them to put that in writing, that they’ll never do any fracking in this county, that would be interesting.”
Coombs with Patriot Resources reiterated that local oil practices are “pretty standard, simple, routine stuff.” He believes a passage for the measure could cause a “reverberating effect” in other California counties.
“The reverberating effect would be – probably a copycat kind of thing,” he said. “Why did San Benito County pass something like this?”
Sierra Club hosting ‘Global Frackdown’ event
The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter is organizing a “big fracking educational rally event in San Benito County at no charge,” according to an announcement from the Sierra Club. There will be mariachis, local dance art, musical performers, music and food. Known as Global Frackdown, the event will be held on Oct. 12th from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Park in Hollister.
Senate Bill 4 FAQ:
– Regulations implemented by Jan. 1, 2015
– Interim regulations, such as water monitoring and chemical disclosure, implemented as of January 2014
– Operators required to notify neighbors before commencing stimulation operations
– Operators required to disclose chemical composition of well stimulation treatments
– Proposed regulations require rigorous testing before, during and after stimulation operations
– Neighbors can request baseline testing of agriculture of drinking water wells
– State water board developed water monitoring program effective January 2014
– Operators required to report any earthquakes of magnitude 2.0 or greater in the area of a recent well stimulation treatment
– Environmental review required on well stimulation operations in the state
Source: SB-4 FAQ, Calif. Dept. of Conservation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stance:
Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy future. The U.S. has vast reserves of natural gas that are commercially viable as a result of advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies enabling greater access to gas in shale formations. Responsible development of America’s shale gas resources offers important economic, energy security, and environmental benefits.
Source: http://www2.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing
Internet Resources:
Gasland: gaslandthemovie.com
Food and Water Watch: foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking
SB-4 regulations: conservation.ca.gov/dog/pages/wellstimulation.aspx
Calif. Council on Science & Technology: ccst.us/projects/fracking_public/BLM.php
State/local bans:
keeptapwatersafe.org/global-bans-on-fracking
What are injection wells?
About 42,000 injection wells in the state are used for waterflood, steamflood, cyclic steam and water disposal. Most of the injected fluid is brine that is produced when oil and gas are extracted from the earth.
Source: Calif. Dept. of Conservation
