It may surprise some people to know that California is the fourth largest producer of crude oil in the United States and has a long history of oil exploration. Since the 1860s, wells in Kern County and Southern California have been tapped for more than 500,000 barrels of oil each day.

Introduction

It may surprise some people to know that California is the fourth largest producer of crude oil in the United States and has a long history of oil exploration. Since the 1860s, wells in Kern County and Southern California have been tapped for more than 500,000 barrels of oil each day.

Now, the practice of going after the supply of oil that was previously unattainable is being scrutinized to make sure it does not contaminate precious underground water supplies.

The technique of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” injects high pressure volumes of water, sand and chemicals into existing wells to unlock deposits of natural gas and oil. Fracking has drawn attention because of the fear by some that the unknown mixture of chemicals put into the ground could migrate to drinking water sources. Another concern is the possible link between fracking and seismic activity.

“Of course, I am concerned with groundwater quality here in the L.A. Basin; there’s an awful lot of oil drilling going on here, and if fracking is a potential problem, I want to know more about it,” said Ted Johnson, chief hydrogeologist with the Water Replenishment District of Southern California (WRD), at a July 24 symposium on fracking in Long Beach sponsored by the Groundwater Resources Association of California (GRA).

WRD’s service area includes 30 mapped oil fields and 9,700 oil and gas wells. Oil and groundwater have been pumped together for more than 100 years and even with the advent of fracking, the district is not aware of any problems with shallow groundwater contamination originating from deep in the oil reservoirs, Johnson said.

“I certainly know there are a lot of cases of petroleum contamination of groundwater from surface sources – the refineries, the gas stations, the leaking underground storage tanks – but with regard to what’s going on in an oil well a mile or 2 miles deep, I haven’t seen any evidence yet that the practice has created a problem, although we do have some unexplained water quality results that we are looking into,” he said.

Fracking is used to extract natural gas in many parts of the country and has caused some controversy. A 2010 documentary film called Gasland depicted the alleged impacts of fracking activities on residents of several states, including one man in Colorado who ignited the gas coming through his kitchen faucet. Rather than fracking, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission attributed the flammable faucet to biogenic methane, which is found in some shallow, water-bearing geologic formations, into which water wells are sometimes completed.

The fallout from Gasland and the attention directed at fracking by celebrity activists has put the spotlight on the oil and gas industry as well as federal, state and local government agencies.

“Fracking wasn’t on a lot of people’s radar until recently but with all the media attention now it’s more in focus and ACWA is one of those organizations that’s taking a look at the potential for what it could possibly do to groundwater,” said Danielle Blacet, regulatory advocate with the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA).

Because of the emerging information about fracking, ACWA has yet to establish an official stance on any regulatory protocol, she said.

“We are on a fact-finding mission with a lot of other organizations, trying to get as much educational material as possible and working with our members who are in areas where there is fracking so if they are having concerns then we can advocate for them and talk to the appropriate agencies,” she said.

Environmentalists are reacting to “fast moving developments” regarding fracking in California and are concerned about the threats to water quality and water supply, said Damon Nagami, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), at the symposium.

“A big problem in California is a serious lack of information,” he said. “Our water supply is extremely constrained so we need to know how much water fracking uses so policymakers can make the necessary decisions.”

NRDC and others have called for a moratorium on fracking until it is proven safe to groundwater. “We believe in the precautionary approach,” Nagami said. “Until we know we have information about this practice, why are we putting our drinking water supplies at risk? There is absolutely no reason to do that.”

The oil industry supports an approach that concentrates on ensuring fracking is done in a manner that protects the aquifer and adjacent groundwater wells.

“Well construction is the critical point; we need to focus on how to protect groundwater and this is an area where we think the state does an excellent job,” said Tupper Hull, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA). “Nobody has ever said hydraulic fracturing has adversely impacted the groundwater or caused any other environmental concern. The record is highly commendable.”

Fracking falls between the cracks, so to speak, when it comes to state oversight. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) oversees oil drilling operations, but since fracking occurs in existing wells, there are no specific rules for its use.

“California is fragmented in how it does government and we are very narrowly focused,” said Rob Habel, chief deputy supervisor with DOGGR. “We want to prevent damage [to oil and gas reserves] but we are not reactionary if contamination is found.”

DOGGR is developing a regulatory proposal that will include definitions, well construction and reporting requirements, Habel said. Officials also would like to know how fracking might affect the seismic activity of a given area.

“California geology is very com­plex,” he said. “We have a lot of faults and folding. We have to know the geology [where fracking occurs].”

Drillers access the “producing horizon” of oil through vertical and sometimes horizontal drilling. The thickness of the rock means the fracking process opens up fissures. That is a concern because regulators don’t want the fracking mixture ending up where it doesn’t belong.

“We say if you are going to frack a well, we want to make sure the fractures aren’t being conducted to other wells,” Habel said. “We have to make sure the faults are not conduits for liquids.”

Habel said the rules must strike the right balance between protecting people and the environment and enabling industry to do its job, he said. “The key, we think, is to make sure fracking fluid is limited to just the zone of intent so we can make sure the fluid injected has no impact to freshwater,” he said.

DOGGR’s regulations offer California the “opportunity to do it better than has been done back east,” where regulators addressed fracking after the fact, said David Albright, manager of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region IX’s groundwater office in San Francisco.

Albright said EPA, the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior are preparing a research plan for fracking that will include analysis of potential impacts to drinking water, the potential for spills and wastewater treatment. The agency oversees water quality through the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) but does not directly regulate fracking except where diesel fuel is used. The draft is scheduled to be released in October.

“EPA does not have authority under the SDWA to regulate fracking but whatever is produced, those fluids are covered by the SDWA as a class two activity,” Albright said. “If it’s discharged on the surface it would need a Clean Water Act permit, but solely the injection – that is exempted from SDWA coverage.”

According to EPA’s ongoing study plan, its purpose “is to elucidate the relationship, if any, between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water resources. More specifically, the study has been designed to assess the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources and to identify the driving factors that affect the severity and frequency of any impacts.”

EPA will examine the potential impacts of large volume water withdrawals from ground and surface waters on drinking water resources, the possible impacts of surface spills of fracking fluids, flowback and produced waters on or near well pads on drinking water supplies, as well as the possible impacts of the injection and fracturing process and the possible impacts of inadequate treatment of fracking wastewater.

Environmentalists want fracking stopped until the risks to groundwater are better understood.

“Our position in California is the same as our national position: no new fracking should take place until effective safeguards are established to protect public health and the environment,” Nagami wrote in a July 23 letter to DOGGR. “California has no regulations in place that are specific to the practice of fracking. Moreover, regulations currently on the books … do not fully protect public health and the environment from the impacts of fracking.”

NRDC and others say it should be known where fracking occurs, how much water is used, which chemicals are used and in what amount and how wastewater is processed.

Fracking has been in the news in Southern California, where oil drilling operations occur within fairly close proximity to residential areas. Neighbors of the 1,000-acre Inglewood oil field in Los Angeles have expressed concern about the possible impacts they believe fracking could visit upon them.

“Even if the impacts aren’t as large as other areas, places like Baldwin Hills tell us you could still have huge impacts on people and communities,” Nagami said at the GRA symposium. “Even small seismic events or drinking water impacts could still cause a disruption in people’s lives.”

Fracking is a concern in areas where groundwater is the sole source of local drinking water supplies. In an Aug. 2 commentary published in the Santa Ynez Valley News, Bob Field, president of the Santa Ynez Rancho Estates Mutual Water Company in Santa Barbara County, wrote that the small amounts of chemicals used in fracking pose a threat to water quality.

“Only one gallon of their ‘only 1 percent’ solution could contaminate up to 1 million gallons of groundwater – and each fracking process uses on the order of a million gallons of these toxic solutions,” Field wrote. “Fracking fluids should not be allowed to contain any toxic chemicals. If it is not lawful for a chemical to be in groundwater, it should not be lawful to inject it into the ground.”

This issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in California, with information presented at GRA’s inaugural symposium on groundwater and energy.

Click here to purchase a copy of the entire article.

Editor’s Desk

Water Writings

To help celebrate the Foundation’s 35th Anniversary, we asked for your thought on the most influential written words on California water. We heard from a lot of you on what written words have influenced you and affected the landscape of water in California. We asked that people think broadly in nominating documents that included everything from books, essays and poems to technical reports, judicial opinions, legislation, agency reports and even internet blogs.

The winners and the nominations will be revealed at the Foundation’s 35th anniversary dinner, Oct. 25, in Sacramento to which you are all invited. The winners will be selected by a diverse group of Foundation Board Members. I looked at the writings and it’s fascinating. There are well-known and obscure writings and those submitting the nominations make a good case for their selection. The writings break down into three major categories:

• those with water at the heart of a sense of place and even spirituality
• those that are political in that they made – or currently make – the case for changes based on science and policy, and call people to action
• those that are classics, including respected water law texts, state bulletins, judicial decisions and state and federal laws

I’m not a judge in the contest but if I was, I’d nominate the writings of Joan Didion because I think she transcends all three categories. A native from a pioneer family and veteran of Sacramento’s dry summers and personal flood watches on the levees, she combines the factual and the poetic. She described her love of the physical movement of water in the West in her 1979 essay “Holy Water” from The White Album. In this and other writing, she discusses controlling water and life by remote control and of living in California with the artificiality of living in a harsh and transitory environment. She even writes about trying to fall asleep at night by thinking about water tumbling out of projects from Egypt to the California Aqueduct. Water has often made her deliriously happy. So I’m proud to say that she recently sent me a note saying she regrets not being able to be with us on our anniversary but “I send all my admiration and thanks for everything you do.” She understands the work we do and she’s the top writer in my book.

We used several Joan Didion excerpts in our own book Water & the Shaping of California, published in 2000. As with all our publications and programs, we strived to bring the water story alive in our book and help educate people about the value of water. It’s a mission we know you share and we would like to thank you for all your support these past 35 years!

– Rita Schmidt Sudman