Today, right now, California is facing a decision, possibly the most consequential decision in the history of the state. It is simply, oil or water? Now is the time; this decision cannot be postponed. Once the leash restraining the oil companies has been released there is no going back.
California has outpaced other states regulating fracking. Santa Barbara County, and now Sacramento are taking the issue seriously. The oil companies recognize that Frack is a four letter word and are avoiding it, if not in practice, very definitely in vocabulary.
But some California agencies, as if driven by feelings of guilt for a regulatory hard line on fracking, are now quite willing to accept cyclic steam injection and other methods oil drillers propose. And California legislators and administrators are being successfully wooed by the economic promise oil companies like to make. Let us in, they say, and there will be jobs, jobs, jobs. Maybe. But for whom?
The Monterey and Sisquoc shale oil play is located in a region roughly from Monterey County south into Ventura County, and in some locations west almost to the Sierras. These counties are on the front lines in the war between oil and water. And more specifically, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission is currently under the gun. They have postponed a proposal by Santa Maria Energy to drill 110 wells using cyclic steam injection in the Careaga Oil Field in Orcutt. Their concern is emissions. But should it also be water?
That four letter word, Frack, has not been mentioned. The proposal is for cyclic steam injection. We know that fracking requires a tremendous amount of water. But what is known about the amounts of water used in cyclic steam injection?
In his article 'Water Use Concerns Flood Frac Meetings and DOGGR Workshops Statewide' (Apr 6th, 2013) Tomas DiFiore* suggests that the cyclic steam injection method might actually use more water than fracking. The problem is, the former method has drawn far less attention than fracking, and has, after all, been in use in California since the 1950's. Numbers of wells and data regarding water use have not been tracked.
But we do know this: one small company, in one oil field converts 60 Million Gallons of water per day into steam and injects it into wells to make heavy oil flow.
Viewed another way, says DiFiore, "In one week, in one oil field, the yearly water usage of between 3,500 – 7,000 California families is pumped down into the ground, as steam. It comes back out with the oil, as product water, to evaporate in unlined pits, and toxic ponds." That's a lot of water. But agricultural use of water is generally 36 times that of oil drilling! How can our aquifers sustain all of that?
The increased emissions hazard potential from heating water into steam is a concern, no doubt. But in a world where the effects of global warming have already begun, and with increased dryness and diminishing water resources in the West, my most immediate concern is to have enough water to drink and to grow my food.
California, like most of the Southwest, is currently experiencing drought. The Los Alamos aquifers are in overdraft. In the Cuyama Valley water has become a serious concern. That region will not be alone in this danger for very long. In the face of general global warming, it is unlikely that this drought is a one and done situation. Something's got to give - and you can't drink oil.
