Last summer (2014) the California Department of Conservation discovered a little hiccup in the regulatory oversight of one of its agencies (a department within the department)—the Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, also known as DOGGR. That little curve in the road led state regulators to review 50,000, that’s a lot, underground injection wells under DOGGR’s purview.
OK so, it’s not so little a thing. It’s a big quantity of one thing that a big agency is supposed to keep track of. But it gets better: “That action came after it was discovered that some injection [of oil and gas wastewater] was taking place into zones previously not exempted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for injection under the terms of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act,” according to a recent press release from the conservation folks.
So, for some reason, the state’s conservation agency and the State Water Resources Quality Control Board didn’t realize before the fateful summer of 2014 that injection wells they’re collectively responsible for regulating could have been pushing wastewater—you don’t want to drink—into aquifers the state maybe could someday use for drinking water.
Whoops. The agencies tasked with protecting our water (Hello? There’s a drought, people.) from many sources, including the oil and gas industry (Hello? I don’t want to drink fracking wastewater or any kind of water resulting from that kind of activity.), were lazy or dropped the ball or didn’t pay attention or something. Hey, I guess that’s OK, it’s just our potential water supply.
It’s not all bad, though. At least regulators caught some of the bad and shut down 22 injection wells in Kern County and one in Tulare County, which were injecting water into FEDERALLY PROTECTED AQUIFERS. How did someone not track that before? Those wells had to go through an approval process, and they somehow got approved.
Eleven injection wells in Santa Barbara County were also under investigation: Not to worry everyone, they got a “clean” bill of health. That information was disseminated at the May 12 Board of Supervisors meeting. Even though the injection wells are still technically stuffing wastewater into “non-exempt” aquifers, county staff and DOGGR are confident that no one should be drinking the water from those aquifers anyway because they’re located in oil- and gas-producing zones.
County staff outlined four reasons why wells slipped through DOGGR’s regulatory cracks: border confusion (not sure where the exempt aquifers begin and end), expanding productive limits (new technology), depth confusion (not sure how deep or shallow aquifers are), and partial exemptions (I have no idea what that last one means).
But now they’ve got it figured out, or they’re attempting to figure it out, maybe. Doesn’t that inspire confidence? Not really. As 3rd District Supervisor Doreen Farr put it at the meeting: DOGGR’s got a lot of trust it needs to build back up.
“It’s obviously very concerning,” she said. Yes, it is. And as far as the county’s concerned, DOGGR’s the lead agency with the oversight authority on this type of thing. Although, county staff is now adding the injection well question into its application process for new oil and gas production activities.
I think the craziest part of all this is the fact that these somewhat blanket approvals could still be going on, and we—the people, the public—might not have ever found out about it. Just like the fracking fluids and wastewater that offshore oil operations are releasing into the federally regulated waters of the Pacific Ocean. We found out about it thanks to an environmentally conscious—like to-the-extreme environmentalists, and I guess that’s why they exist—nonprofit. Is anything being done about it? Not that I can tell. Apparently, it’s an OK thing to do. The fish and their friends will be fine, according to federal regulators like the EPA, which signaled that OK by not making a big deal out of it.
At the May 12 meeting, supervisors also voted to support (except, of course, 4th District Supervisor Peter Adam and his 5th District voting counterpart Steve Lavagnino) legislation essentially re-requiring DOGGR to do its job.
“I don’t see how passing a piece of legislation is going to get DOGGR to do what they’re supposed to do,” Lavagnino said at the meeting. Honestly, me neither, because it doesn’t seem that they were doing it in the first place. Who’s going to make sure DOGGR—an agency simultaneously taxed to both promote and protect us from the oil and gas industry—is doing its job? Supposedly the EPA, but that’s the agency that gave DOGGR control over oil and gas wastewater injection wells and protecting underground aquifers from oil and gas contamination in first place.
The canary thinks no one has the regulatory oversight to control her. Email comments, questions, and concerns to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 21-28, 2015.
