You recently published a piece of mean-spirited zealotry from a supporter of Measure J running down the San Benito County Farm Bureau for its opposition to the local ballot measure. The writer called the county’s leading agricultural organization “misguided” for concluding that Measure J is bad for farmers and bad for San Benito County. She belittled the concerns of Farm Bureau members and others over the potential loss of property and mineral rights if Measure J passes. I am writing in response and to set the record straight.
The folks behind Measure J—and similar measures being pushed at the local level elsewhere in California—spend a lot of time talking about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and stoking fear about local water supplies. In reality, they know the fracking talk is a smokescreen. Their real ambition is a shutdown of all local petroleum production. These measures, as San Benito’s assistant county counsel recently explained in a memo about Measure J, “would generally prohibit land uses in support of many oil and gas production methods.” The irony, of course, is that fracking isn’t used, proposed or planned in San Benito County. But the many other drilling and well-enhancement techniques also targeted by Measure J, like use of steam injection, which was invented next door in Monterey County, could be used but would be off the table if the measure passes, bringing an end to petroleum industry investment and eventually what remains of the energy industry in San Benito County.
So, why would the county farm bureau and other agricultural and business groups on record as opposing Measure J care about this? There are the job losses, for one. Another reason is the counterproductive environmental, economic and geopolitical consequence of increased dependence on oil imports. Yet another is the loss of property and mineral rights that help some landowners maintain current land uses—the concern the writer from the Yes on Measure J camp went to such great lengths to denigrate. I don’t know how many San Benito County landowners benefit economically from mineral rights associated with oil and gas production. I do know that the National Association of Royalty Owners estimates there are over 510,000 individual recipients of monthly royalty payments from the petroleum industry in California.
The folks behind Measure J clearly think their concerns have more merit than those of the county Farm Bureau, mineral owners and other organizational and individual opponents of Measure J. But it is wrong and deceitful of them to claim that a ballot measure that would eliminate the means of petroleum production available to the county’s local energy industry does not have serious implications for local landowners who benefit from or stand to benefit from mineral rights.
Edward S. Hazard is president of the California Chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners.
