A renewed interest in San Benito County oil exploration is an opportunity worth serious examination from government leaders, but they will have to take an equally serious look at addressing environmental concerns centered on advancing extraction methods such as fracking.
San Benito County has intermittently drawn oil interests for more than a century. With new technologies and rising oil prices, though, investors are showing a renewed intrigue in this region, home to the Monterey Shale and its 15.4 billion barrels of recoverable deposits.
Advanced technologies – specifically fracking, or hydraulic fracturing – are unlocking potential to recover much of the reserve that is thousands of feet below the earth’s surface.
Aromas residents are particularly, and rightfully, concerned about the potential for fracking in and around the Graniterock-owned Wilson Quarry, where a company conducted seismic surveys with hopes of finding oil or gas deposits.
With tension rising locally – an opposition group called Aromas Cares for our Environment has held several forums and hosts a Facebook page with more than 175 friends – county supervisors will have to address the environmental impacts of fracking and evidence of contamination in other areas of the state or country. Although the state itself irresponsibly lacks any laws specific to hydraulic fracturing, supervisors should take a proactive approach, do their research and weigh potential rules or restrictions for the county related to fracking, known to cause contamination of groundwater systems in some areas of the nation.
At the same time, the county board has an opportunity to lead efforts, with help from local business organizations, to develop a comprehensive energy plan focused on the economic potential in San Benito County for oil, natural gas, solar, wind and other forms of renewable resources.
Considering the county already has a 399-megawatt Panoche solar farm in the works, further growth in other sectors of the energy industry – oil and gas in particular – would add to the area’s energy portfolio and offer opportunities to promote the economic potential, along with incentives to bring new business here.
Although it is vitally important that county officials proceed cautiously when it comes to addressing what appear to be valid questions over environmental impacts, it is not the time – in a county with desperately high unemployment and foreclosure rates – to throw cold water on a major opportunity for the economy.
