Category: Fracking

And if an ordinance that would ban fracking in Butte County is a symbolic gesture — as some argue — the importance of the symbolism to the state’s oil-and-gas industry was clear at the Oct. 23 meeting. The Commission faced upfront industry lobbying from statewide groups opposed to a local ban.

After hearing testimony from more than 30 people, the Commission voted 4-0 to table the matter until its Dec. 11 meeting. (Commissioner Harrel Wilson was absent.) Perhaps more telling, the commissioners also voted 4-0 to pare down the draft ordinance by about 95 percent in order to consider an abbreviated version that would only ban the disposal of fracking by-products in Butte County.

The Board of Supervisors can still act to adopt or reject the original ordinance — which was written by county attorneys during the past six months — but the Planning Commission must first make a recommendation.

“I don’t know why we’re in such a hurry to do this,” said Commissioner Mary Kennedy, noting that a ban in Butte County, where there’s no hydraulic fracturing going on, is largely “symbolic.”

The ordinance under consideration came about after the Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in April in favor of a ban on fracking or new well-stimulation methods in Butte County. Earlier in the year, the Butte County Water Commission had recommended a zoning amendment that would require a conditional-use permit for fracking.

Ban proponents note the numerous instances of groundwater contamination in areas where fracking has been underway.

“When they destroy your water, it’s forever,” Water Commission member John Scott told the Planning Commission.

Some citizens and county officials were concerned last spring that as technology evolves, a drilling company might try new methods to extract gas deposits that would put the Tuscan Aquifer at risk. There was also growing concern about whether companies that are fracking in areas near Butte County would use any of the 200 abandoned gas wells here to dispose of toxic wastewater.

Chico State geology professor Todd Greene, who opened the Planning Commission meeting by giving a fact-based PowerPoint presentation on fracking, indicated that wastewater may in fact be the bigger worry. The process of fracturing rock formations deep in the Earth to extract oil and gas deposits produces what’s called “flowback” — the mix of brine and fracking fluids that may contain radioactive matter.

“Wastewater is what has the potential for impacts to water resources,” Greene said. “What do you do with what is usually a toxic mix?”

Wastewater is usually trucked for disposal in an injection well elsewhere or treated and reused in some way. In comments after the meeting, Greene reiterated his belief that it’s “very unlikely” that what he calls “modern fracking” — involving the use of some chemicals that aren’t yet well-regulated and horizontal drilling technique — will happen in Butte County.

But the state oil and gas industry opposes restrictive legislation, even in counties where fracking would seem to be a remote possibility.

Dave Quast, the California field director for Energy In-Depth, the public-outreach program run by the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA), urged the Planning Commission to reject the ordinance. Quast said the process of fracking is already “heavily-regulated” to ensure safety.

“The ordinance would be a symbolic gesture at best,” Quast said.

Prior to the meeting, the panel received correspondence opposing the ban from a Los Angeles law firm representing the political action committee (PAC) Californians for Energy Independence that is funded by oil, gas and other kinds of energy companies.

That PAC received more than $7.7 million in contributions between May 5 and Oct. 16 of this year. For example, according to the Secretary of State’s campaign finance disclosure reports, Occidental Petroleum donated $2 million on Aug. 21, Aera Energy donated more than $2 million on July 11, and Chevron donated $1.2 million on June 10.

Fracking bans are in place elsewhere in the country, including Santa Cruz County. Fracking opponents have placed ban ordinances on the ballots for the upcoming election in San Benito and Santa Barbara counties.

A citizen campaign run by the group Frack-Free Butte County has been successful in getting a 2016 ballot initiative. Planning Commissioner Alan White wondered whether there should be a “sunset provision” that would expire any ordinance passed now before a 2016 referendum.

But Frack-Free Butte County’s Joni Stellar said that a sunset provision might be a big mistake. The county’s ordinance is “far more detailed” as it’s presently written than is the citizens’ ordinance, she said.

“My family owns property that has a capped well,” she told supervisors at their July 29 meeting. “From what we can understand … this would be a takings of our property. The debate today is about the … petition coming before you and whether or not that language is bankruptcy language for this county. Nobody wants to see this county be lost in a big old mess of lawsuits.”

But Cook failed to mention that she has another interest in the matter: the firm she reportedly helps run with her husband, political strategist Josh Cook, has earned $37,500 providing consulting and other services to a Big Oil-funded group, Californians for Energy Independence. The payments to JFW Cook Corp. show up in campaign-finance disclosure reports made to the Secretary of State for the May-June period.

JFW Cook Corp. is Josh Cook’s firm, Cook Communications and Government Affairs. Listed as president on the firm’s website is Cook’s wife, Robinette Scott Cook. Josh Cook is a longtime local Republican consultant who’s worked with former U.S. Rep. Wally Herger, state Assemblyman Dan Logue and Supervisor Steve Lambert when he was a member the Paradise Town Council.

When contacted later, Robin Cook said her family has owned a gas well in Gridley for many years and she is concerned about losing the rights to extract its resource. “It’s in our peach orchard,” she wrote in an email to the Chico News & Review. “I work for the industry trying to protect our rights to safe and secure energy production.”

The typical “taking” results when a government seizes private property and must pay just compensation; but in some cases, when government regulation renders a piece of property worthless or worth much less than its previous value, it is argued that it’s in effect a taking.

Another firm listed on the disclosure form is Public Square Partners LLC, which received $10,000 on May 29. The only listed member of that organization is David S. Reade, son-in-law of the late Assemblyman Bernie Richter and one-time chief of staff to former Assemblyman and current U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa.

Californians for Energy Independence still had $1.3 million in its coffers at the end of June. Contributions to the group had been made by a number of oil and gas companies, including Chevron, Vaquero Energy and Freeport-McMoRan Oil and Gas.

The campaign-finance reports show that the political action committee “Californians for Energy Independence, including Energy Producers” spent a total of $116,238 during May and June to stop the advancing Butte County ballot initiative.

During this period, initiative backers Frack-Free Butte County overcame a legal challenge — also financed by the committee— that questioned the petition’s phrasing, font size and bolding of certain passages. Butte County Superior Court Judge Robert Glusman ruled the petition complies with the state electoral code and ordered the county to move forward with the process.

On July 28, the County Clerk’s Office validated almost 8,000 signatures on the petition, enough to move it forward. But on July 29, the supervisors were faced with the sudden emergence of a group of people who said they opposed the ban on fracking or immediate action on the ballot initiative.

Many of the people speaking against approval of the initiative asked for a 30-day study, leading some anti-fracking activists to suspect that the opposition had been orchestrated by well-financed opponents who briefed people on the study option in advance of the meeting.

Frack-Free Butte County Treasurer Joni Stellar, who went to court pro per to successfully stave off the legal challenge from a San Rafael law firm, was incensed. “Nobody asked for a study until this 11th hour,” Stellar said. “It’s a delay tactic.”

The supervisors voted 4-1 to take the initiative under study for 30 days, making it impossible to approve it in time to appear on the November ballot. It had to be approved no fewer than 88 days before the election, making the deadline Aug. 8. Now Butte County citizens won’t vote on the matter until 2016 unless there is a special state election to which the matter could be added. County counsel is continuing to work on a fracking-control ordinance of its own, as directed by a 4-1 supervisor vote in April.

Earlier on July 29, Robin Cook assumed the role of spokeswoman for an unusual protest outside supervisor chambers. A number of people hoisted signs championing private-property rights and opposing the ballot initiative. They pointed reporters to Robin Cook, who said a 30-day study would ensure “good policy.”

Cook then told supervisors that the anti-fracking activists should have waited for the county to draft its ordinance, and pointed out that County Counsel Bruce Alpert has said he’s concerned about language in the citizen-drafted ordinance.

“I have put blood, sweat and tears into my dad’s land, and I don’t want to see us put something on the ballot that will bankrupt us,” Cook said.

Maureen Kirk was the only supervisor to vote against the motion to study the ballot initiative for 30 days, although she indicated the study could be useful and said Robin Cook’s comments concerned her. But she said she was also concerned about respecting the ballot-initiative process. “All these people, they got these signatures without a paid consultant,” Kirk said. “They did it with their blood, sweat and tears. To not put it on the ballot doesn’t seem right.”

Excerpted from Secretary of State Campaign Finance committee expenditure reports.

This story was written in collaboration with the Chico News & Review. Check it out on the CN&R website here.

The grass-roots campaign to ban fracking in Butte County via ballot initiative came to a crashing halt with a July 29 vote by the Board of Supervisors. The supervisors voted, 4-1, in favor of a 30-day study of the initiative rather than to place it on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The board also said it would proceed with work on an ordinance county attorneys are writing that would also ban fracking and that would likely include more detail and definition of terms. That’s been underway since the board’s April 8 meeting, when supervisors voted 4-1 in favor of a county-wide fracking ban.

This week’s vote came after two hours of unusually contentious debate between Frack-Free Butte County campaign supporters and other county residents, most of who had never before been heard publicly on the matter. Some members of the emerging opposition group said they’re concerned the Frack-Free ordinance would trample on property rights, prevent the creation of new jobs or result in costly litigation.

Board Chair Doug Teeter and supervisors Bill Connelly, Steve Lambert and Larry Wahl voted to take the draft ordinance prepared by citizens under study for 30 days, which means that it will probably appear on the 2016 General Election ballot — two years after Frack-Free Butte County’s target date.

Supervisor Maureen Kirk voted against that motion; the initiative deserves movement with time to land on the coming election ballot, in her view. The petition got more than the 7,605 required signatures with the “blood, sweat and tears” of volunteers, Kirk said.

It’s been a dramatic and daunting journey for anti-fracking activists, who just last week overcame a legal challenge, and on Monday evening, learned that Butte County Clerk-Recorder Candace Grubbs had validated 7,975 petition signatures.

The Tuesday vote was bitterly disappointing to activists who have been working to ban fracking by ballot initiative for more than a year, who wrote a draft ordinance with the help of local attorneys and who conducted a campaign involving hundreds of volunteers. “Nobody asked for a study until this eleventh hour. It’s a delay tactic,” Frack-Free Butte County Treasurer Joni Stellar said during a break in the meeting.

An ordinance written by the county won’t be as durable as would be an ordinance born from a ballot initiative; the latter can be overturned only by another initiative drive. But some activists nevertheless tried to focus on what Butte Environmental Council’s (BEC) Robyn DiFalco called the “silver lining” — the promise that the board will approve a comprehensive ordinance of its own.

“I believe in the public process, and if the outcome will result in good legislation, that’s the silver lining,” BEC Executive Director DiFalco said after the meeting.

The four supervisors seemed swayed in particular by the county’s attorney, Bruce Alpert, and by a lobbying effort on behalf of Wild Goose Storage, which operates an underground natural gas storage facility in Gridley.

Early in the meeting, Alpert said he had “grave concerns” about the citizen-drafted ordinance. “I see trouble ahead with the ordinance as it’s presently drafted,” he said.

Alpert said his office had been consulting with municipalities across the country — including the counties of Santa Barbara and San Benito where similar anti-fracking campaigns are underway — and is close to having its own “state-of-the-art” ordinance to ban the practice. He said his ordinance would address the problem of “takings” — the issue of whether the county would be infringing on the rights of property owners who might want to frack for gas on their land or otherwise exploit their mineral rights.

But some activists fear that an oil-and-gas-funded campaign could ultimately derail efforts to impose a local fracking ban; they’ve already gotten a taste of that fight with the legal challenge that was posed last month by a Marin County law firm.

“The oil and gas industries… spent $100,000 in this county before we even qualified our initiative or got close,” said anti-fracker Karen Duncanwood during the public hearing. “We traced this money back to a Houston oil firm…”.

“Our concern is the longer we wait the more difficult it’s going to be to pass something,” said Dave Garcia, a key figure in launching the local anti-fracking movement. Garcia said the supervisors are “getting a lot of pressure from the Republican Party, and it’s only going to get worse.”

Early Tuesday morning, some 10 people opposing the ballot initiative convened under a canopy erected outside the county office building where the meeting would be held. They carried signs championing private property rights and opposing the ban, but refused to identify themselves or comment. When this reporter approached a group of young people, an organizer quickly intervened, telling the students, “You’re not allowed to answer any questions.”

They pointed reporters to Robin Cook, a communications professional who previously worked for now-retired congressman Wally Herger. Cook said she decided to get involved when Butte County Superior Court Judge Robert Glusman last week broached the issue of “takings,” as it relates to the ordinance, during a court hearing.

“My ears pricked up,” Cook said. “My dad owns several farms in the area, and I wondered how it would affect him. We’re asking for the 30-day study. We just want good policy.”

During the hearing before supervisors, Cook was more explicit. “We have a capped well on our property,” Cook said, indicating that “takings” might affect her family. “You don’t want a big old mess of lawsuits. We need to study this to know if it’s bankruptcy language.”

Also concerned about language in the ordinance was Brian Hamman, an attorney representing Wild Goose, who sent the county a letter on May 5 and spoke at the public hearing Tuesday. The May letter says the ordinance might have “unintended consequences;” Hamman says it would affect Wild Goose operations even though no fracking is underway at the facility.

Wild Goose operates an injection well, though, that worries anti-fracker Garcia. The injection well is used for disposal of saltwater rather than fracking waste. But Garcia told supervisors that injection wells have been linked to increased seismic activity, and noted that the Wild Goose well is “within miles” of the Willow fault line.

Hamman told supervisors there’s a “bunch of misinformation” about his company. Later, he told ChicoSol: “I’m a little upset to get thrown under the bus with Big Oil. I consider myself a friend of the environment. I hope a good law [against fracking] does get put in place.”

Teeter was clearly worried about inadvertent harm to Wild Goose. “Wild Goose is one of our top [county] tax payees,” Teeter said, wondering aloud how passage of the citizens’ ordinance would affect Wild Goose property values.

Several board members said they want to ensure the ordinance addresses disposal wells in light of recent state action to shut down injection wells in the Central Valley because of a suspicion that oil and gas companies have pumped hazardous chemicals into drinking-water aquifers. Connelly voted for the 30-day study only after he was assured the board would move forward with an ordinance that would address that danger.

“I don’t want our abandoned wells to be used as dumping grounds,” Connelly said.

Citizens opposing the ballot initiative asked that the matter be studied, arguing that it was being rushed through. And the public hearing often diverged into an is-fracking-safe-or-not discussion.

Midway through the hearing, BEC’s DiFalco addressed the question at hand — what to do with the initiative. “It’s an imperfect process,” DiFalco said of ballot-initiative legislating. “But the California Constitution allows for the process. Let the citizens of Butte County vote. It’s their Constitutional right.”

After the meeting, she alluded to rumors that within the Republican Party, there’s a concerted effort to keep fracking off the November ballot because of a fear that it would attract voters to the polls who don’t adhere to a conservative agenda. DiFalco said she doesn’t believe the board vote reflects any such political motive. “But the forces that don’t want this on the ballot in November were effective,” she said.

Ultimately, Stellar said, the anti-fracking campaign has been a success. The board’s April vote to ban fracking was a direct result of the campaign, she said. “I’m disappointed, and hopeful the county will come through. We have educated a lot of people. We have literally made this an issue in the county.”