• On March 11, state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) announced legislation to reform the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), California’s primary oil regulatory agency. Senate Bill 545, would reform the agency so that protecting and informing the public, as well as the safety of drinking and irrigation water become priorities of DOGGR. The bill would encourage transparency of the agency, prohibit wastewater injection into aquifers with potentially safe drinking water, require written findings for injection well permits, and eliminate the ability of well owners and operators from keeping records confidential. The announcement came the day after a Senate oversight hearing highlighting the management and oversight failures of state regulators, especially when it comes to underground wastewater injection wells—of which there are 51,000 in the state, according to Steve Bohlen, the state’s oil and gas supervisor. The agency is currently in the process of reviewing approximately 176 wastewater injection permits to make sure water produced through extraction of oil and gas isn’t being injected, and therefore contaminating, groundwater aquifers that could be used as safe drinking water. On March 3, DOGGR issued cease-and-desist orders to oil operators in Kern County on two wastewater injection wells in order to “protect high-quality groundwater,” according to a DOGGR press release. Operators voluntarily relinquished their permits to 10 other Kern County wastewater injection wells. The move is “part of a systemic statewide review of injection related to the oil and gas industry,” according to the release. The department pulled permits on 11 other wastewater injection wells in 2014/2015, Bohlen said during the oversight hearing. Legislators at the hearing voiced concerns that DOGGR has given the oil and gas industry precedence over the need to protect public health and protecting drinking water. “There has been a long-standing imbalance in the culture of DOGGR that has encouraged drilling over and above protecting our public health, our water, and the environment,” Jackson said in a press release from her office. “It is clear we need a significant change in the agency that regulates oil drilling.” The press release adds that DOGGR shut in a number of wells in the Central Valley last summer, after it was found that wastewater had been injected into federally protected aquifers.
This article appears in Mar 19-26, 2015.