In response to “Like Oil and Water” and how the oil companies are misleading our community on Measure G, Katie Ferrari describes how every barrel of oil the field is accompanied by 19 barrels of highly contaminated “produced water” (Sept. 6).
What she fails to mention is that “produced water” never was drinkable water. It is ancient water, which is naturally highly contaminated with minerals and naturally occurring chemicals and cannot be used for any human activity. It is not drinking water that has been polluted during the oil extraction process. The drinking water aquifer is not contaminated during oil extraction.
The second major risk, according to her, “can” be earthquakes triggered by increased wastewater injection. Produced water from the drilling process is inserted back into the aquifer from which it came or is cleaned up and re-purposed, so there is no “increased wastewater injection,” which might cause earthquakes.
Fracking has never been used in this county, and there are no plans to do so as it is not necessary.
An Aug. 30 article in the New Times (“Morro Rock, Montana de Oro, Irish Hills among areas reviewed by feds for fracking and oil drilling”) mentions all the areas that might be subject to fracking, but only at the very end of the article does it mention that these are federal lands and would not be governed by Measure G.
It would be nice to have an honest discussion of the problems associated with oil drilling.
Peter Byrne
Paso Robles
This article appears in Sep 13-23, 2018.
The author is either mistaken, uninformed, or deceitful. The produced water from oil production is, in fact, potential drinking water. The proof of this is that over 500 barrels a day is treated to drinking water standards in a reverse osmosis facility at the Arroyo Grande oil field and then dumped into Pismo Creek where it runs into the ocean.
Injected wastewater is a known cause of groundwater contamination and earthquakes and it is not necessarily injected into the area it was extracted from. Plus, plans to expand production by 1000% at the Arroyo Grande field would mean over 1,400,000 gallons a day of toxic wastewater injected under 500 pounds of pressure into the deep geology under the oilfield. Where will that flow? What earthquake faults will it lubricate? Will the author please provide us with these answers.
The oil companies say they will never frack here and you believe them? Why is Kern County being fracked? Why did oil companies want to frack in Monterey County? Why did President Trump recently open up federal lands for fracking in SLO County? Big oil has lied for decades. The No on G campaign lies everyday in its mailers, ads, and talking points.
Rational discussion of the threat of new oil drilling and fracking in SLO County begins with objective facts. Mr.Byrne is simply repeating No on G erroneous talking points. For a full discussion of Yes on G come to our Town Hall meeting at the Atascadero Library on Sept 27 from 5-645 pm
The comment above highlights Mr. Varni’s lack of knowledge as it pertains to:
1) Simple economics
2) Basic engineering principles
3) Fluid flow through porous media
4) The use of a proper analogy
5) Geology
6) General history of the field
7) Fracking in general, what it is, how it’s done, and why it’s done.
As I’ve asked before, Mr. Varni what are your qualifications to speak with so much authority on this topic? Are you a geologist? An engineer? Do you have any practical experience that makes you an expert in what you are saying?
But hey, if you want to get together with a bunch of people who have the same OPINION, block people from their Facebook page who disagree, and scream “big oil lies” every time someone points out some inconvenient facts, head on over to the library! I’m sure there will be a lot of diverse and stimulating discussion…
Here’s a link to a yesterday’s story written by award-winning writer and editor Jim Morris, that provides insight and more information for those who Don’t want to be TOLD how to VOTE this November by BIG OIL or their Consultants and Baggage Carriers (you know who you are!!).
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2018/09/12…
“It’s not that injection wells used to produce oil are any more or any less of a threat to public safety or the environment than fracking. Indeed, there is significant overlap between the chemicals used in fracking and those used in injection operations like cyclic steamingsome of which are extremely toxic. “They’re basically using the same chemicals,” says Seth Shonkoff, the executive director of PSE Healthy Energy, an energy science and policy institute in Oakland, California, and visiting scholar at the University of CaliforniaBerkeley. Dozens of chemicals used in both well stimulation and more routine operations, such as well drilling or maintenance, have been deemed harmful to human health by the EPA and other government agencies.” Quoted from the above article. Vote Yes on Measure G Protect our Water
More from the same article. This is really scary. “What’s in your Water”
“DOGGR, apparently stymied by record-keeping problems and miscommunication, has been allowing the industry to inject produced water into protected aquifersin some cases for decades. Nearly half of those permits were issued after Brown took office and after the EPA’s audit in 2011 called attention to serious problems with California’s underground injection program.
“Let me be clear so that it’s not a misunderstanding,” Jonathan Bishop, deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board, the agency that regulates water quality, told the California Legislature in 2015. “We believe that any injection into the aquifers that are not exempt has contaminated those aquifers.” Yes on Measure G