As someone who has watched her mother battle breast cancer twice, I am outraged by polluters that try to greenwash their image by donating to charities that fight the disease—all while using known carcinogens in their oil extraction methods. A $20,000 gift from AERA Energy last month to Mission Hope Cancer Center at Marian Regional Medical Center was particularly disturbing because it took place here in Santa Barbara County, where AERA wants to more than double the county’s onshore oil production. (In 2015, total production was 7,470 barrels; AERA’s proposed expansion would add up to 10,000 barrels more a day.)
Many of the chemicals used in oil and gas drilling are linked to cancer. If AERA Energy really cared about cancer patients it would stop toxic drilling, not greenwash its image by donating to cancer centers. While current law allows the oil and gas industry to avoid disclosing the exact chemicals used in their operations as trade secrets, extreme methods like fracking, cyclic steam injection, and flooding routinely use known carcinogens liked benzene and acrylamide both during drilling and well maintenance.
Currently, AERA Energy is seeking a permit to drill 296 new wells in the county. These wells would use extreme extraction techniques like cyclic steam injection and pattern steam flooding—techniques that use large injection engines that spew more air pollution and volatile organic compounds linked to cancer than traditional oil production. The engines inject a chemical soup that includes carcinogens and other harmful compounds. Worse yet, these wells would be drilled right through the drinking water aquifer that provides water to a dozen cities and communities in two counties, threatening to contaminate our water with toxic chemicals.
Oil production also creates another major health problem: how to manage and dispose of billions of gallons of wastewater. This contaminated water often contains harmful toxins and heavy metals known to cause cancer that can leak into soil, groundwater, and locally grown crops. In fact, AERA Energy was sued in Kern County for illegally dumping 2.4 billion barrels of wastewater into unlined ponds. These ponds leaked into the water basin, polluting the groundwater and harming local agriculture. This is not happening only in California. Nationwide, 2 billion gallons of toxic chemicals from oil operations are injected into the ground every day, and a quarter of those chemicals are linked to cancer.
We need to fund research for better cancer treatments, but we need to prevent the disease, too. A growing body of research shows that toxic chemicals, spread through everyday exposure, may increase the risk for developing cancer. In 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel reported that “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.”
This toxic exposure is not even necessary to meet our energy needs. California has the fastest growing solar industry in the country, generating half the solar capacity in the U.S. California produces so much solar energy, that it even gives it away to neighboring states. Instead, better management of the grid and better storage would allow California to rely increasingly on clean renewable energy like solar, wind, and geothermal. In fact, a recent study prepared for Food and Water Watch by Synapse Energy Economics finds that Los Angeles could go 100 percent renewable by 2030. California also has more electric cars on the road than any state.
It’s time to recognize the connection between oil drilling and chemicals that increase the risk of cancer and move off of dirty fossil fuels. It’s clear that this donation is merely a public relations stunt by AERA Energy. If the donations to nonprofits from AERA Energy ensures their silence in the face of increased oil expansion in Santa Barbara County, they are truly doing disservice to our community. Instead, local nonprofits should join with other community organizations to force the industry to take responsibility for endangering public health by stopping dangerous drilling.
Alena Simon is the Santa Barbara County organizer for Food and Water Watch and Food and Water Action. Send your thoughts to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 24-31, 2018.