Environmental Working Group
Photo by Abrahm Lustgarten for ProPublica
State regulators have no idea how many oil and gas wells have been fracked in California despite having requested and received $3 million in new funding in 2010 to regulate the practice. Lacking actual data, they insist that drilling companies rarely use the technology in California—a head-in-the-sand stance that has now been contradicted by Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) research showing that fracking has been used in the state since 1953 and is now widespread.
The state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources says it does not plan to monitor or manage use of the technology unless the legislature requires it or the agency is handed “evidence of manifest damage and harm.”
“On the one hand, the Division remains in denial about fracking for oil,” said Bill Allayaud, EWG’s director of government affairs for California. “On the other hand, they ask for and receive funding to regulate it and then don’t do it—and have no plans to do it.”
In hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking,” drilling companies inject a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground under high pressure to release oil or gas trapped in underground formations. EWG’s research documented the use of fracking in six California counties—Kern, Los Angeles, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara and Ventura.
Although the Division of Oil and Gas has reworded its factsheet on fracking multiple times, it has consistently said that practice is “uncommon” or “limited” in the state, repeating this view as recently as February 2012. Focusing on the fact that fracking for gas is thus far relatively uncommon in California, the division takes scant notice of the reality that it has been widely used to extract oil.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently found a number of “program deficiencies” in the state agency’s activities, noting that its regulation of other types of underground injection were inadequate to protect underground drinking water sources.
Since the state does not currently monitor, track or regulate fracking in any way, it can’t possibly know whether the technology is having harmful environmental effects. Congress exempted fracking from federal environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. In the absence of state regulation, California residents have no protection against environmental damage from an industry that acknowledges that fracking carries risks that include spills, leaks, explosions, injury and even death.
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EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. and Oakland, Calif. that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.
Tell Bill Allayaud – Hi, it has been many years since we played intramural sports at UCSC. Also…as a geologist with 7 years experience in oil and exploration in the western US – circa 1964-70, I’d suggest that the demand for “no risk” from fracking is a bit childish and unreasonable. Our society is filled with risk – every day – and the biggest risk is over population. Then there’s driving and cell phones…I’m sure you haven’t done that. Correct? How about over eating, drinking, drugs…? I could go one. The risk from fracking to the general public compared to the ones I’ve mentioned is minuscule by comparison.
Halliburton Loophole Debacle – The 2001 Public Land Concession to Private Interests or “Government Capture”
During the Bush Administration, Vice President Cheney gave away BLM public lands to private corporations for natural gas exploitation and exempted them from environmental laws. This exemption, known as the Halliburton Loophole, was not publicized nor passed through the correct departments or agencies for approval. The corporations that have benefitted from the Halliburton Loophole practice hydraulic fracturing, an extracting process using hundreds of toxic chemicals to create cracks deep underground which allows oil or natural gas to move freely, and ultimately flow to the earth’s surface. This is commonly known as “fracking” which on our public lands is destructive because it ravages natural habitat. On April 8th, 2013, the Center for Biological Diversity and allies report that a federal judge ruled that the Obama administration violated the law when it issued oil leases in Monterey County (underline included in citing) without considering all the risks that fracking poses to water, air and wildlife. The fracking process disrupts the ecological web and leaves toxic waste in its wake because “hydraulic fracturing typically introduces a mixture of potentially toxic chemicals into the ground” (Institute for Energy). This massive introduction of toxins into the Earth contaminates surrounding communities which then suffer from the poisoning of their land, air, and water. This is contrary to both the EPA and BLM’s mission and goals.
Hydraulic fracturing is a “federally unregulated extraction process used in many natural gas drilling sites” (Hydraulic Fracturing: Unsafe, Unregulated) and as of May 11, 2012, had more than 17,000 disclosures from 135 reporting companies. Hydraulic fracturing contaminates the environment and concerns about its effects on drinking water supplies have surfaced (The Institute for Energy). In the 2005 Energy Policy Act, those exemptions included oil and gas construction [causing] … [e]nvironmentalists to worry “about run-off from well pads, pipelines and construction sites” (Kosnik, 2007). Although fracking poses an incontestable potential for water poisoning that needs EPA regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act, (SWDA) the EPA’s active environmental laws have not been allowed to adequately address the hazards of fracking nor the suffering of surrounding communities. David Hines at Wilkes University’s Energy and Environmental Institute states “due to … a federal law enacted in 2005, the EPA does not currently have the authority to regulate the underground injection of chemicals during the hydraulic fracturing process” (The Institute for Energy). Why was the EPA not authorized to regulate the underground injection of chemicals during the hydraulic fracturing process when this is their job? A Google Scholar search into “unregulated fracking on public lands results in environmental contamination” brought up more than 100 scholarly articles proving water contamination. In addition, The New York Times investigated thousands of internal EPA documents which reveal that wastewater containing radioactivity at levels higher than previously posted and “far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle” was being hauled to sewage plants that were not “designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water” (SourceWatch). What happened to the laws and regulations that were already in place before 2005 that, until now, protected public health and safety as well as the environment concerning the toxicity of water. This latest prohibition, hostile to fracking regulations, is a result of:
Provisions within the 2005 Energy Task Force, which was enacted by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. The prohibition has been called the “Halliburton Loophole” … because it is believed to have come from recommendations made in 2001 by a Special Energy Policy Task Force headed by then United States Vice President Richard B. Cheney, who had served as Chief Executive Officer of the Halliburton Corporation, a leading energy company in Texas that initially developed the modern hydraulic fracturing process (The Institute for Energy).
The Energy Task Force was specifically formed to purposely deliberate fracking without analyzing it in an environmental context. This is a clear example of why our natural resources must not be separated from BLM’s environmental purview and consideration. The Energy Task Force looked at these resources only in an economic context without their bearing on the environmental aspect. The resources are separated from the environment and henceforth simply treated as a commodity – not as an integral part of our ecosystem. These natural resources shift from an environmental asset to an economic asset with the mere change of agency even though they are on public land and not considered a private interest. The Energy Task Force issued a profit price tag without the consideration of the cost to human health and the environment. In this case, the EPA neglected its duties to monitor the machinations taking place in the neighboring energy agency.