Anne C. Mulkern, E&E reporter
\nPublished: Monday, April 14, 2014<\/p>\n
Companies involved in offshore oil drilling in federal waters along
\nCalifornia’s coast should voluntarily test for chemical leaks and
\nrelease the information, a state lawmaker said Friday.<\/p>\n
Providing water quality data would bolster people’s faith that oil
\ncompanies want to prevent pollution, Assembly member Das Williams (D)
\ntold industry representatives at an Assembly Select Committee on
\nCoastal Protection hearing in Santa Barbara, Calif.<\/p>\n
California’s S.B. 4, which passed last year, requires base line
\ntesting of water near sites where hydraulic fracturing and other well
\nstimulation treatments are used, including state waters. But the law
\ndoesn’t apply in the ocean controlled by the federal government.<\/p>\n
“If the regulatory structure of S.B. 4 provides that extra level of
\nsafety, and frankly, testing and verification, so therefore
\naccountability, why would your industry not voluntarily agree to
\nadhere to those standards in federal waters?” Williams said. “Why
\nwould you not provide that testing data to state regulators? There’s
\nnothing stopping you from adhering to state regulations in federal
\nwaters.<\/p>\n
“Would you do it?” he added.<\/p>\n
The inquiry took place at the informational hearing focused on
\noffshore drilling that uses hydraulic fracturing. Throughout
\nCalifornia, city and state officials are examining rules related to
\nfracking operations. In the Legislature, S.B. 1132, which would
\ntemporarily ban hydraulic fracturing and other unconventional oil
\ndrilling, last week passed out of its first committee in the state’s
\nSenate (EnergyWire, April 9).<\/p>\n
That same day, the board of supervisors in Butte County, 80 miles
\nnorth of Sacramento, in a 4-1 vote directed staff to come back with an
\nordinance that would bar fracking. There have been similar votes
\nseeking moratorium ordinances in Los Angeles and Culver City. Nearby,
\nCarson last month imposed a ban on all oil drilling.<\/p>\n
Williams’ question Friday came after Dan Tormey, while speaking on
\nbehalf of the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA),
\nsupported new state rules on water.<\/p>\n
“With S.B. 4 and the addition of water quality monitoring, I do think
\nthat’s a good idea,” Tormey said, “to measure what the base-line
\nconditions are and then to see afterward whether those have been
\naffected.”<\/p>\n
Williams then asked about voluntarily providing the data as it relates
\nto drilling in federal waters.<\/p>\n
“It’s an unfair question,” replied Peter Candy, an attorney also
\nrepresenting CIPA. “You would have to ask individual operators.” Those
\ndrilling platform operators would need to talk to federal officials,
\nCandy said, adding that there currently are movements toward those
\nconversations.<\/p>\n
‘Prove good faith’<\/p>\n
“We don’t need them if you guys voluntarily decided to do it,”
\nWilliams said, which triggered applause from the audience. “If you
\nreally wanted to prove good faith to the public, you could decide to
\ndo that.”<\/p>\n
Candy said that it “would go operator by operator. It’s difficult for
\nus to sit up here today and answer for individual operators.”<\/p>\n
Craig Johns, representing the Western States Petroleum Association
\n(WSPA), said that S.B. 4’s provisions on water testing focus on
\nprotecting groundwater. Ocean water isn’t used for drinking, he said.
\nAdditionally, he said, EPA monitors for any adverse impacts on the
\naquatic environment from offshore drilling.<\/p>\n
Williams responded sharply.<\/p>\n
“I think on behalf of fishermen and swimmers and surfers and
\nbeachgoers of this county and the state, seawater does have a
\nbeneficial use,” even if it’s not used for drinking water, though
\nthat, too, is changing, he said, referring to desalination.<\/p>\n
The California Coastal Commission began probing offshore fracking last
\nyear after a news report revealed that regulators had allowed fracking
\nin the Pacific Ocean at least a dozen times since the late 1990s. The
\nAssociated Press unearthed the data through a Freedom of Information
\nAct request.<\/p>\n
In waters controlled by the federal government, there are 23 platforms
\nwith outer continental shelf (OCS) plans granting approval for
\nexploration. A dozen individual wells have done some form of fracking
\nin the last 25 years, Alison Dettmer, chief deputy head of the Coastal
\nCommission’s Energy and Ocean Resources division, told lawmakers.<\/p>\n
The agency has limited power when it comes to federal waters, she
\nsaid. Its purview is limited to evaluating whether activities are
\nconsistent with state law.<\/p>\n
Discharges to the ocean are prohibited in state waters but are allowed
\nand practiced in a number of federal waters, the Coastal Commission
\nhas said previously. The agency plans to send U.S. EPA a letter
\nrequesting that the agency modify its permits so that drilling
\nplatform operators that plan to discharge would submit to an
\nadditional Coastal Commission review, Dettmer said.<\/p>\n
Assemblymember Mark Stone (D), chairman of the Select Committee on
\nCoastal Protection, at the hearing noted that he had seen in his
\nbackground materials that the oil and gas industry rejects that the
\ncommission has review authority over OCS plans.<\/p>\n
Dettmer said that it’s “a complicated question.”<\/p>\n
“We’re going to have to go case by case to look at the individual OCS
\nplans,” Dettmer said, explaining that the agency would be evaluating
\nwhether each initial plan “actually anticipated at that time doing any
\nform of well stimulation.”<\/p>\n
Federal vs. state jurisdiction<\/p>\n
During questioning later, Stone asked Candy — representing CIPA —
\nhis view of the Coastal Commission’s authority. Candy said that CIPA’s
\nposition isn’t that the state agency “lacks all authority to do
\nconsistency reviews.”<\/p>\n
But, Candy said, “in cases where you’ve got an established facility
\nand an approved OCS plan, then the commission needs to be wary of
\ninfringing upon” the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Safety and
\nEnvironmental Enforcement and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
\nFederal regulations give those agencies “exclusive jurisdiction” for
\ndetermining what falls within the scope of an OCS plan versus what
\nwould require significant revision, which would trigger a commission
\nconsistency review, he said.<\/p>\n
“This industry is highly regulated,” Candy said. “The protections are
\nin place.” The Coastal Commission should be ensuring that “the
\nregulators are doing their jobs,” he said, “but not requiring
\nconsistency review every time an operator proposes to hydraulically
\nfracture a well.”<\/p>\n
Stone responded that “the point of consistency review is that
\noversight over a federal agency” to “ensure that the federal action is
\nnot jeopardizing coastal resources.”<\/p>\n
Interior Department representatives turned down a request to testify
\nat the hearing, Stone said.<\/p>\n
Environmental groups, meanwhile, urged more protections.<\/p>\n
Brian Segee, staff attorney with the Santa Barbara-based Environmental
\nDefense Center, said that the Santa Barbara channel is rich with
\nmarine life that includes threatened and endangered species. There are
\nbluefin, humpback and killer whales, porpoises, dolphins, southern sea
\notters and hundreds of other fishes, birds and invertebrates, he said.<\/p>\n
Fracking releases harmful air pollution, uses large amounts of water,
\ncould increase risk of earthquakes and, by producing more oil, hurts
\nefforts to reduce climate change, Segee said.<\/p>\n
In addition, he said, some companies are using hydrochloric and
\nhydrofluoric acid in wells and should fall under the definition in
\nS.B. 4 for well stimulation. But there’s an industry attempt to
\ncurtail S.B. 4’s scope by exploiting an exclusion for “routine well
\ncleanout work, routine well maintenance and routine removal of
\nformation damage due to drilling.”<\/p>\n
“Until a moratorium is enacted … it is imperative that attention be
\npaid to this critical issue and attempt to circumvent the plain
\nlanguage and intent of S.B. 4,” Segee said.<\/p>\n
Special thanks to Richard Charter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anne C. Mulkern, E&E reporter Published: Monday, April 14, 2014 Companies involved in offshore oil drilling in federal waters along California’s coast should voluntarily test for chemical leaks and release the information, a state lawmaker said Friday. Providing water quality data would bolster people’s faith that oil companies want to prevent pollution, Assembly member Das … Continue reading Energy & Environment: Oil companies pushed to release more data on offshore drilling<\/span>