- A farmer views fracking drills near an almond orchard in Shafter (image: earthjustice.org)
Shafter, CA–They say some things never change. When it comes to this rural California community, they’re right—mostly. People still flock to the same burger joint, grow the same crops, and walk through the same orchards they have for decades. But something is different here today than thirty years ago. Breaks between the fields and orchards no longer just hold dirt fields, but new oil drills, massive flames burning off excess energy, and for some time last year, unlined pits being filled with toxic wastewater.
While Shafter residents are no strangers to oil drilling (it has been happening near here for decades), the new drills are part of a controversial technique—hydraulic fracturing– being used to extract more oil. Fracking, as it is often called, allows drillers to break through the previously inaccessible Monterey Shale, a rock formation estimated to hold 15 billion barrels of oil trapped beneath 1750 square miles of Southern and Central California. Many see a fracking-fueled economic boom, but potential consequences have some farmers and residents worried about their livelihoods.
Last year, California adopted new regulations aiming to protect communities like Shafter from these potential harms. But a recent research article by Robert Holohan and Gwen Arnold suggests that this law may not be effective. They explain how fracking is fundamentally different from traditional oil drilling and how this poses new regulatory challenges.
So, what exactly makes fracking different?
Traditional oil drilling involves sending water, sand, and chemicals underground to recover oil from the surrounding rocks. Fracking involves drilling much deeper into the ground (up to 12,000 feet, twice the depth of traditional oil drilling). Fracking also requires drilling horizontally out from the well at this depth, sometimes as far as 10,000 feet. This is because the oil in the shale naturally occurs in fissures, or cracks. To force the oil out, drillers must expand these natural cracks and make new ones, and each crack can extend hundreds of feet from the original well.
Because of this, the effects of fracking are more expansive than those of traditional drilling; it involves more chemicals and more water to be able to drill deeper, and the fact that it goes farther out means that any potential contamination has a wider-reaching effect and is harder to trace. As a result, pollution from fracking must be classified and treated differently.
Traditional drilling is classified as “point-source” pollution, but fracking operations cannot be classified the same way. Point source pollution refers to pollution that originates from one place and stays in the area. Think of the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010: the event and its effects were horrible, but it was clear right away that the contamination had come from that particular oil rig, and this made addressing it easier. Point source pollution is more preventable, or at least more manageable, since the cause is easier to assess and thus to avoid in the future.
Fracking is “non point-source.” Potential harms are harder to trace back to one well, because of the far-reaching horizontal fractures. Significant uncertainty remains about how large and frequent fractures need to be to extract the oil. As Holahan and Arnold explain, we can think of fracking as hammering a large block of ice. If you hit the block, you know it will create cracks and break up the ice; you may even be able to estimate how big the cracks will be based on how hard you hit it. But there is no way of knowing exactly what shape they will take or what direction they will go.
So what does all this mean for the farmers in Shafter?
California governor Jerry Brown signed a new law late last year that would place restrictions on fracking. The law, which will go into effect in early 2015, requires permits for wells, a 30-day notice to those living near a new well, disclosure of chemicals being used, and water testing before and after fracking occurs, although it is thus far unclear to what extent companies will be allowed to use “trade secrets” to keep from disclosing the chemicals being used. The law also requires further scientific studies about the effects of fracking.
While this move toward informing the public is noteworthy, the law will likely prove insufficient in light of fracking’s non-point source nature and its many uncertainties. While the requirement for further scientific study is needed, people of Shafter and the rest of the state must be protected in the meantime. New York, which faced similar concerns over fracking, placed a temporary moratorium on fracking while requiring further research on the process and its potential problems. The California government may want to consider a similar action to address fracking’s complicated and uncertain consequences.
*While the comment period for the fracking law ended in mid-January, California residents can still contact state senators and representatives to share their concerns about fracking. Information can be found here:
Senate: http://senate.ca.gov/senators
Assembly: http://assembly.ca.gov/
Holohan, Robert and Gwen Arnold. “An Institutional Theory of Hydraulic Fracturing
Policy.” Ecological Economics 94(2013): 127-134.
For further information, see also: