The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided that 575 acres of aquifer underlying Price Canyon should be exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, ending the limbo that Sentinel Peak Resources has been in since it purchased Freeport McMoRan’s local oil drilling operation in 2016.
Freeport McMoRan applied for an aquifer exemption in the Arroyo Grande Oil Field in 2015, after the California Department of Conservation discovered that thousands of permitted injection/re-injection wells in the state, including some in Price Canyon, were actually being drilled into aquifers that were covered under the Safe Drinking Water Act. In an April 30, 2019, letter to the State Oil and Gas Supervisor, the EPA stated that the portions of the oil field covered by the application don’t currently serve as a source of drinking water and won’t in the future, “because they have been demostrated to contain commercially producible quantities of hydrocarbon.”
Charles Varni—who works with the SLO Surfrider Foundation and spearheaded the effort to pass Measure G, which would have banned future oil and gas drilling in the county—said that SLO Surfrider is disappointed in the EPA’s decision.
“The Price Canyon oil field has some of the dirtiest oil on Earth and we cannot [allow it] to expand production of it and pour its toxic gases into the atmosphere,” Varni said in an email.
Sentinel Peak Resources, on the other hand, is pleased with the decision. Director of Regulatory Affairs Christine Halley indicated in an email that the oil company is eyeing the remaining 31 oil wells left to drill on a 95-well project already approved by the county.
“Following months of proactive dialogue with the state agencies, federal agencies, and the public, this determination gives reassurance that oil and gas production continues without impact to the region’s drinking water,” Halley wrote to New Times. “With this determination in hand, the Arroyo Grande Oil Field will continue to support 80 to 100 full-time, well-paying jobs for the San Luis Obispo community. … As part of doing so, we will keep all options open, including completion of the latest approved development plan.” Δ
This article appears in May 30 – Jun 9, 2019.
Speaking of toxic gases, when are these environmentalists going to start advocating for housing policies that don’t force people to make long, pollution-causing commutes?
This will happen in Price Canyon (near Pismo Beach), it will happen in Cat Canyon and elsewhere. Stop Steam Injection and Fracking. We allow them to pump shit into the ground and it shows up in the water… The study found:
4 out of 16 wells sampled in the Orcutt field had geochemical indicators of oil-field fluids mixed with groundwater.
Methane and other gases may be migrating through formations along leaky wells/wellbores or faults and mixing with overlying groundwater.
Evidence of wastewater from oil extraction was also discovered in the groundwater.
https://www.edhat.com/news/oil-field-conta…
So the aquifer got exempt? Not a real surprise given the billions of taxpayer dollars going to this industrial special interest group that in turn redirects our own money back to buy politicians to influence these kind of decisions.
But just to be clear. The aquifer exemption is NOT a license to dispose of toxic waste by products manufactured by the oil extraction process. That in fact is an entirely different process that comes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and codified in the Code of Federal regulations Title 40 Underground injection Control program. Which states quite clearly that not a drop of toxic waste can be disposed of until and when a permit issued by the EPA documents that the Arroyo Grande Oil field has been certified a safe and secure dump site for 10,000 year and is no where near any earth quake fault lines.
Safety is our primary concern and exactly what the UIC Class I certification unequivocally determines according to RCRA. The EPA has never issued such a certification for the Arroyo Grande Oil Fields.
The Arroyo Grande Oil Fields have avoided and escaped certification and licensing for at least 20 years with the help and assistance of our local Governing Board of Supervisors. And for the record the EPA does not approve permits and cannot order us to approve permits to allow the injection of toxic waste into the unincorporated areas of SLO County. Our Board of Supervisors is the lead agency and has sole independent jurisdiction over permitting toxic waste disposal in SLO County.
SLO Planning and Building Code also does not allow the Board of Supervisors to approve any injection of toxic waste into the unincorporated areas of SLO county under Title 20 without complying with all local, State and Federal permits and licensing requirements.
For over 20 years the Arroyo Grande Oil Field has been illegally dumping toxic waste into our back yard without so much as a mother may I. And how is this possible? Simple. Up until now no one has told the Board of Supervisors to do their job and get all the proper and necessary State and Federal permits and safety certification from the operators of the oil field before approving local dumping in our backyard.
So, things have changed. We have changed. We are a much wiser, smarter, braver and extremely well endowed presence assembled and armed to insure that all the is are dotted and the ts crossed before a single drop of unidentified, undisclosed lethal waste water by products are legally disposed of in our backyard or else. The or else is legal consequences for our BOS for issuing permits to unlicensed operators.
Its simple. EPA UIC Class I permit must be submitted to the BOS by the operator before the Board has our permission to legally issue a conditional use permit. We have the law on our side and we are not afraid to use it to secure our future well being.