A state agency’s hearing Thursday in Santa Maria on a proposal to regulate the underground injection of oil wastewater drew speakers opposed to the practice and an industry representative who said it has occurred for years without problems.
But most of the anger was reserved for the state Division of Oil Gas and Thermal Resources, the agency criticized for not providing proper monitoring over oil drilling practices and warned that it can not revoke existing oil and gas production permits allowing wastewater injections to occur.
The Santa Maria hearing at the Betteravia Government Center was one of two in California related to the state’s proposed regulation aimed at complying with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
“DOGGR has been illegally allowing oil companies to inject oil wastewater into and through federally protected groundwater aquifers,” injection opponent Seth Steiner of Los Alamos said. “Now, instead of shutting down the illegal injection wells, DOGGR’s asking that the law be changed to allow the industry to continue to pollute our precious groundwater resources.”
DOGGR has already shut down 23 of the 2,500 wells at issue, and speakers, such as Becca Claassen of Food and Water Watch, urged the state to take immediate action on the remaining wells.
Most of the comments Thursday came from those opposed to the practice, but Blair Knox spoke on behalf of the California Independent Petroleum Association, which represents more than 500 companies connected to oil and gas production.
“Repeated and ongoing testing and monitoring have found that no injection activity in the state has caused any negative impacts to the environment,” Knox said. “Instead, this is a paperwork problem.”
While supportive of the plan devised by the state and U.S. EPA, Knox said that if any agencies fail to act in a timely manner the burden should not fall on operators who have valid permits, many of which have been in place for years.
The new regulations may impact ongoing injection activities long approved via permits issued by DOGGR, he said.
“In some cases these injection activities have occurred for decades, pursuant to injection permits issue by DOGGR and injection activities are an integral of CIPA members’ operations,” Knox said.
Among groups opposing DOGGR’s proposal is the Center for Biological Diversity.
“It is inexcusable that DOGGR is allowing illegal injection to continue to contaminate our groundwater in the worst drought of California’s history,” said Ash Lauth, anti-fracking campaigner, calling on the agency to ban the injection process. “The damage from waste injection is often irreversible. The state water board has said that once an aquifer gets contaminated, you cannot clean it up, you can only attempt to contain the damage.”
Buellton resident Rebecca August said she lives within four miles of one of the “illegally injected wells.”
“And there’s no way to assure that the aquifer I count on for survival, that my family counts on for survival and that we feed our livestock with will never be contaminated by the one that you’ve allowed to be polluted,” she said. “Nor can you be certain that we will never come to find ourselves in need of water that has been made unusable. That’s true not just for my family and my neighbors but all of California.”
Several other speakers also noted the injection process is especially troublesome during California’s drought.
“I’m just asking you to do your job and to protect our water to the fullest degree that you have the ability to do,” math teacher Molly Machin said.
The state proposal would give oil firms more than two years to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act, but Amy Anderson from Santa Barbara County Action Network said residents aren’t granted that amount of time to adhere to federal laws.
“We need our aquifers protected now,” she said.
Anderson was several speakers to urge DOGGR to include water districts and regional quality control district boards in the process to comply with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
In addition, DOGGR officials were criticized for not providing suitable notification of Thursday’s hearing, which followed another held in Bakersfield on Wednesday.
“It doesn’t seem like a very diligent attempt was made to get people to come or to hold the meeting in a place where there might be more people that would turn out,” said Ken Hough, executive director of SBCAN.
During the hearing DOGGR officials accepted public comments, but did not respond to questions from speakers.
The regulations were adopted on a temporary basis by emergency procedures April 20, but the current effort is to keep the interim rules in place.
DOGGR came under fire earlier this year from state lawmakers, including Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara.
Additionally, the leader of the Department of Conservation, which include DOGGR, stepped down after the filing of lawsuit contending the agency wasn’t protecting agricultural water as it allowed the oil wastewater injection process to occur.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.