1. What is hydraulic fracturing or fracking?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hydraulic
fracturing is “the
forcing open of fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high
pressure, especially to extract oil or gas.”
Fracking is a common term used for
this process of hydraulic fracturing.
This supposedly common, 60 year old practice in the petroleum industry has no
common definition. Our neighbor, Plains Exploration and Production (PXP) in one
of the documents on its website alludes to a number of definitions of hydraulic
fracturing (some of which use the term to define the term).
Early on when Supervisor Ridley-Thomas held informative
hearings, Jon Peirson who monitors the field told the audience that PXP was
doing nothing more than “gravel packing”-- his euphemism for a definition I requested of Dr Tom Clyde
Williams, another Industry expert.
According to Williams, hydraulic fracturing is
the “Injection of liquids into a
formation at sufficient pressure to exceed the formation's fracture pressure
- force great enough to raise
the formation and breaking it in less than 12-24 hours (Rock weighs 2-3
time more than water - fracking pressure would be sufficient to lift that
weight).”
Neither mention that the
liquids/proppants utilize thousands
of gallons of water laced with proprietary carcinogenic chemicals produced and
injected by Halliburton, nor that
inherent in this process is seismicity which may induce earthquakes.
(I
sometimes wonder if Halliburton thinks corporately of this field –in which they inject the chemicals-- as a
monetary win-win; for if they get to extrude oil & gas they make millions,
and if this process triggers “the Big One” they stand to make billions cleaning
up the devastation.)
2. Brief History & Costs-benefits analysis of fracking
Keeping our focus on
Culver City and the Baldwin
Hills, let's look at the promised
benefits and related costs of hydraulic fracturing.
Benefits: Intended
benefits are cheap energy, jobs, additional revenue for City, County and State
governments. Unspoken benefits sought by
any corporation include dividends to stockholders, with senior management keeping their high paying jobs and
earning bonuses if....
The promise of “cheap energy” from the touted 60 years of
fracking belies the fact of ever
rising gasoline prices. And given our free market system, how can
PXP tout “California Oil for California's Energy Needs?” How can PXP assure the oil it produces will
stay in California or even in the United States?
Costs: The
price tag of these promised benefits primarily affect the communities in which
fracking takes place as they pay the hidden costs. How so?
The Bush-Cheney administration created loopholes in major
environmental statutes providing the Oil and Gas Industry Exclusions and Exemptions. Following is a direct quote from a 2007 report.
The Oil and Gas Industry’s Exclusions and Exemptions to Major Environmental Statutes written by
Renee Lewis Kosnik, MSEL, JD Research
Director, Oil and Gas Accountability Project:
Executive
Summary
The
oil and gas industry enjoys sweeping exemptions from provisions in the major
federal environmental statutes intended to protect human health and the
environment. These statutes include the:
• Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
• Safe Drinking Water Act
• Clean Water Act
• Clean Air Act
• National Environmental Policy Act
• Toxic Release Inventory under the Emergency Planning
and Community Right-to-Know Act
This
lack of regulatory oversight can be traced to many illnesses and even deaths
for people and wildlife across the country.
There are a variety of chemicals
used during the many phases of oil and gas development. These chemicals
also produce varying types of waste throughout these processes. Because
of the exemptions and exclusions, toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes
are permeating the soil, water sources and the air threatening human health
to an alarming extent.
For
the entire document see http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/PetroleumExemptions1c.pdf?pubs/PetroleumExemptions1c.pdf
Culver City and
Baldwin Hills Fracking Concerns
Findings
from a PXP sonar study showed there are oil and gas reserves under Culver City residences and homes. The EIR-CSD indicates PXP plans
to drill approximately 60 wells in Culver City by 2015 and another 40 by 2028. Their plan includes four wells
to be drilled from the surface area of the oil field horizontally under Ballona
Creek and into the Sentous formation which is at about 10,000 feet deep.
PXP
has been successful at exploiting this rock formation using hydraulic
fracturing as a well stimulation technique. As part of the litigated CSD Settlement, PXP
is preparing a Hydraulic Fracturing Study.
My concerns:
ñ For this study PXP is
studying a well they have fracked vertically to create a model
for
the planned horizontal drilling. If the Baldwin Hills striations, water
deposits and rock formations were
straight across like a layer cake, using (A) a study of a vertical well to
predict (B) results of a two to five
mile long horizontal wells, the model might work.
However, given the instability of
this land (remember the collapse of the BaldwinDam)
and the fact that its formations are
very convoluted, the study seems to be more pro forma than predictive of potential hazards.
ñ I wonder if PXP's plans to
drill 100 wells in Culver City are inflated numbers? This is an often used negotiating tool in
development strategy, which makes developers look like they are offering
concessions when they allow cut backs.
In fact PXP did this when they first stated their intention of drilling
1000 new wells in the Baldwin Hills, then conceded to 600, and then settled for
500.
ñ PXP reports using over
160,000 gallons of water per well fracked vertically.
For horizontal drilling or fracking “two to five million
gallons of water may be necessary to fracture one horizontal well in a
shale formation.” This is from the EPA
Study http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/pdfs/hfresearchstudyfs.pdf
In our drought-ridden state, should
use of water for oil take precedence over water needed for human and agricultural use?
ñ The Newport-Inglewood Fault is a right-lateral fault in Southern California. The fault extends for 75 kilometers (47 mi) from Culver City southeast to Newport Beach at which point it runs out into
the Pacific Ocean. The fault can be seen on the Earth's
surface as line of hills extending from Signal Hill to Culver City. The fault has a slip
rate of approximately 0.6 millimeter/year (0.02 in/year) and is
predicted to be capable of a 6.0–7.4 magnitude earthquake on the moment magnitude scale.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport-Inglewood_Fault
ñ Given the proximity of this
field to this and another Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault area, whose active
7.4 fault line runs along LaBrea, is it in the best interests
of the 300,000 residents that live on the perimeter of the Baldwin Hills Oil
Field, as too our beach adjacent neighbors who will suffer the concomitant tsunami,to
allow our elected leader to permit this controversial drilling practice before
all safeguards are in place and communities in the danger zones are adequately
prepared?
4.
Legal Precedents
If Culver City's elected officials, as too our County
Supervisors intend to honor their fiduciary responsibilities to the people's
welfare, in good conscience they must require more of PXP than a study done on
an inadequate model. Given the health
and safety risks involved in this highly controversial form of oil
production, our officials can follow the
precedents of a city, a state and a nation that have put a moratorium or ban on fracking until it
is proven safe.
In 2010, the City Council of Pittsburgh voted unanimously
(9-0) to ban fracking.
“Drafted
by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), Pittsburgh’s
ordinance elevates the rights of people, the community, and nature over
corporate “rights” and challenges the authority of the state to pre-empt
community decision-making.” "With
this vote we are asserting the right of the city to make critical decisions to
protect our health, safety, and welfare. -Pittsburgh Councilman Doug Shields”
Both excerpts from http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/pittsburg-bans-natural-gas-drilling
This May 16th in Vermont, “Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law the nation’s first
[state-level] ban on a hotly debated natural-gas-drilling technique that
involves blasting chemical-laced water deep into the ground. . . . Shumlin said
the increased amounts of natural gas obtainable through hydraulic fracturing
were not worth the risk to drinking-water supplies. In the coming generation or
two, “drinking water will be more valuable than oil or natural gas.” http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/may/28/vermont-becomes-first-state-to-ban-frack/ According to CNN
he also said,"This bill will ensure that we do not inject chemicals into
groundwater in a desperate pursuit for energy," The science behind fracking is
"uncertain at best," Shumlin declared. See http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/23/tagblogsfindlawcom2012-injured
idUS365234324120120523
In a similar vein, a year ago
France voted to ban fracking. According to the Business Insider the French Parliament voted 287-176 to ban hydraulic
fracturing or fracking.
In early May 2012, speaking at the 13th International Oil Summit in Paris,
French economy minister Eric Besson said
that France could reconsider its ban on the
use of hydraulic fracturing in the exploration of shale gas if the technique
can be proven to be safe. “He
said that so far, shale gas explorers had been unable to prove that hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, was not harmful to the environment.
"That doesn't mean the subject is closed -- it could be reopened tomorrow," Besson said, adding that by tomorrow he meant over the next few years. But this would only happen if operators "can prove the safety of the technique."
"That doesn't mean the subject is closed -- it could be reopened tomorrow," Besson said, adding that by tomorrow he meant over the next few years. But this would only happen if operators "can prove the safety of the technique."
5.Common Sense Criteria: The Precautionary Principle &
Informed Consent
The Precautionary Principle
As countries, states and cities
struggle to balance their budgets while protecting the common good, lawmakers
need to look at Precautionary Principle
approaches to resolve these very real concerns regarding potential harm from
hydraulic fracturing for gas and oil.
“In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the application of the precautionary principle has been made
a statutory requirement.” from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle.
Also
The precautionary principle or precautionary approach
states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to
the public or to theenvironment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the
action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it
is not harmful falls on
those taking the action.
This principle allows policy makers to make discretionary
decisions in situations where there is the possibility of harm from taking a
particular course or making a certain decision when extensive scientific
knowledge on the matter is lacking. The principle implies that there is a
social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when
scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. These protections can be
relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that provide sound evidence
that no harm will result.
A precedent for using this
approach is found in our own Federal Drug Administration (FDA) policy which demands that corporations prove that their
substances “Do no harm” before they can
market them.
Informed Consent
Given
that PXP is planning to drill under our homes, in addition to the Precautionary
Principle, the changes to the Culver City municipal code in respect to
hydraulic fracturing should also include:
1. That all property owners and residents in and near the horizontal
drilling areas be duly informed by the City of the potential risks to their
health, safety and property.
2. PXP files with the City all
letters from property owners who gave their mineral rights to PXP.
3. That PXP needs to instruct all
property owners regarding areas in their homes or buildings that may be
adversely affected from the underground drilling.
4. That property owners may file
photos/videos of their property where potential damage may occur,
5. That PXP indemnify the property
owners and pay for any damages that may occur; that the burden of proof lies
with PXP if property owners have filed photos/videos with the City before
drilling occurred, such as foundations, door jambs, etc.
6. That PXP put up sufficient
funds in an escrow account that will pay for any damages or loss of life
occurring within Culver City from its oil & gas production, with burden of
proof on PXP regarding liability.
7. That PXP not begin any
hydraulic fracturing or “gravel packing” or horizontal drilling until it can prove
to the citizenry and not just assume or extrapolate from a vertical model study
that its processes are safe, posing no hazard to our health or safety; and that
it is in full compliance with the recent EPA requirement to capture toxic air
emissions.
8. That PXP pay for our Fire
Department's Disaster Preparedness Coordinator and Staff to provide all at-risk
areas with Neighborhood Emergency Response Teams (NERT) trainings and also
establish Community shelter areas,
carrying out evacuation drills and teaching all how to shelter-in-place
in case of emergency. Area especially
at-risk include Blair Hills, Raintree, Tara Hill, Lakeside, Culver Crest and Marycrest Manor, as too our
neighbor, WLA College, as well as our schools.
9. That the City provide unbiased
public education regarding the pros and cons of this controversial process and
that until affected residents give their informed consent in writing, PXP
cannot engage in horizontal drilling in
Culver City.
How you can get involved
Express
yourself at 3 vital hydraulic fracturing meetings:
1.
May 31, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., 10708 Northgate,
Culver City 90230. An educational event
to prepare for the State meeting about fracking (listed below) (310) 204-0570 or makeCCsafe@gmail.com.
2.
June 6, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., at the Greater Baldwin
Hills Alliance office 3731 Stocker Street #201, Los Angeles 90008. Fracking Advocacy Development meeting. mark@chc-inc.org
or (323) 295-9372 ext. 225.
3.
June
12, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., City Hall, Culver City, 9770 Culver Boulevard, Culver
City sponsored by the California State Department of Conservation hosting 1 of
the 7 state-wide workshops as part of a comprehensive information gathering
process aimed at the development of regulations governing hydraulic fracturing. http:/conservation.ca.gov/org/general-information/pages/hfworkship.aspx.
Suzanne DeBenedittis is the former Vice President and current Advisor to the Board of the Culver Crest Neighborhood Association.
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