California's OK, Chevron Is Selling Oil From an Illegal Spill
In this report, "it has been shown that it is not only Nigeria as a country endowed with oil deposits that undergo the taste of corrupt practices in the hands of some the oil producing companies like the chevron, Mobile, Shell etc".
It has been reported that deep in the oil fields of Western Kern County, a little northwest of the century-old town of McKittrick, hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil and wastewater filled with toxic chemicals have been seeping out of the ground for two years, in an area where companies operate hundreds of wells. As of this month, exactly two years after it began, more than 576,240 gallons of oil and 4.2 million gallons of wastewater have seeped from the ground into a dry streambed.
The ongoing pooling in the Cymric Oil Field “McPhee” lease area ranks among the largest spills in California history, though the state says the spread of spills generally in the Cymric field has been reduced by 90% since 2019. Chevron, the company responsible for the McPhee spill, appears to be violating a law prohibiting so-called surface expressions. Curiously is to the fact that despite this action the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM), the regulating agency responsible for enforcing such rules, has not issued penalties to Chevron, apart from a fine it levied against the company for a nearby spill that occurred in May 2019.
More alarming, argue environmentalists, is that Chevron is selling the oil that it collects from the spill, even though it’s coming from a seep prohibited by regulations. CalGEM says it has yet to “assess” the amount of money Chevron has made off selling oil from this surface expression since November 2019. That California is allowing Chevron to sell oil bubbling up from a prohibited surface expression is a striking example of the state’s climate dissonance.
In a statement, Chevron spokesperson Tyler Kruzich said the company has “made significant investments” into keeping the seep contained while implementing mitigation plans “with the goal to stop” the leaks. CalGEM said it issued a remedial order requiring Chevron to undertake a root cause analysis “and to take all necessary measures to stop the flow of the ongoing surface expressions.
” The company is injecting cooling water to reduce the subsurface energy buildup that causes surface expressions, which has been “substantially effective in reducing the flow of the surface expressions,” according to CalGEM spokesperson Jacob Roper.
In spite of mitigation efforts, neither Chevron nor the state knows when the seep will end. That California is allowing Chevron to sell oil bubbling up from a prohibited surface expression, with apparently no consequences for now, is a striking example of the state’s climate dissonance.
To this note in a phone call made from the COP26 event in Scotland, California Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon told CalMatters that the state was “no longer leading the world” on climate policy, falling behind peers like the city of Paris and the German state of Baden-Württemberg and this all holds to what is transpiring with the Chevron irresponsible action to the spillage.
Newsom’s administration vowed to end fracking by 2024 and has announced other lofty goals on a decades-long timeline. The Western States Petroleum Association, the largest such trade group in the state, is suing CalGEM for denying permits for new fracking wells this year. The agency’s director, Uduak-Joe Ntuk, cited climate change as a reason for the denials.
In October 2019, CalGEM ordered Chevron to pay a civil penalty of $2.7 million for surface expressions in the Cymric field. According to state documents, the company reaped $399,231 in “economic benefit” from selling the spilled oil from the May 2019 incident. But it has paid none of the penalty, because it filed a notice of appeal and is engaging in settlement discussions with the state.
“The regulations say that the [surface expressions] are illegal, but if you have a regulator who’s unwilling to enforce the law, it doesn’t do much good.”
Hollin Kretzmann, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity CalGEM hasn’t assessed how much economic benefit Chevron has enjoyed throughout the two year duration of the McPhee spillage, according to department spokesperson Roper.
Hollin Kretzmann, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the fact that CalGEM has not collected any fines from Chevron for the spills calls the agency’s enforcement capabilities into question.
“The regulations say that the [surface expressions] are illegal, but if you have a regulator who’s unwilling to enforce the law, it doesn’t do much good,” Kretzmann said. “Chevron is selling the oil for additional revenue, so it’s very perplexing, to say the least.”
Eric Laughlin, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said that his agency has a wildlife officer assigned to the area and has recorded no injuries to animals to date as they related to the McPhee spill. Testimony from another agency member, during a hearing on surface expressions in January 2020, indicated that animals in the Cymric Oil Field near other spills have been seen covered in oil.
The state has faced other issues stemming from its permitting of cyclic steam injection. An audit last year found that at least 100 injection wells were approved without proper environmental reviews; CalGEM has since said the issue has been resolved, though the Center for Biological Diversity is suing over it.
And CalGEM’s Class II UIC Program, which oversees the state’s injection wells for oil and gas production as well as wastewater disposal, has been out of compliance with the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act since 2012, and the state now risks losing oversight of the program.
For a century, Chevron has been a political powerhouse in the state. This year alone it has spent $3.55 million lobbying both the Legislature and various agencies in the executive branch, on everything from carbon capture and fees for promoting zero emissions vehicle goals to opposing physical buffer zones between oil drilling operations and homes, schools and health facilities. The company also donated at least $438,400 to candidates and associated committees in state legislative races in 2020.
In
May, Capital & Main filed a public records request for communications
between Chevron’s lobbyists and employees at CalGEM, as well as other executive
agencies, based on issues Chevron said it lobbied on in the first quarter of
the year. CalGEM spokesperson Roper said the agency’s legal team was reviewing
responsive records and would release them soon. Throughout 2020 and early 2021,
California issued more than 300 permits to oil and gas companies for new
underground injection wells — an intensive form of oil production and
wastewater disposal.
Environmentalists say it’s another contradiction in the state’s energy policy,
which seeks to position California as a leader in reducing greenhouse gas
emissions while at the same time issuing hundreds of permits for injection
wells an energy-intensive and pollution-heavy form of hydrocarbon production and
prolonging society’s dependence on fossil fuels.
A spokesperson for Chevron said that the company had “provided responses to the Water Board’s initial concerns and questions and looks forward to continuing to work through the permitting process to support continued safe operation in the Kern River Oil field.”
From 2008 to 2018, the industry produced 1.3 trillion gallons of water in California via oil and gas extraction; as of the second quarter of 2017, 81% of produced water was injected back underground, according to a report from the environmental group Earthworks.
According to Pulupa, the Central Valley water board director, injecting produced water may pose less of a threat to groundwater supplies than other methods, such as disposing of it in unlined pits, but its full impact is still murky and presents risks.
“If you dispose enough of the produced water, it might migrate toward the valley floor, which is not a drinking water supply as of now, but certainly is water used for agricultural purposes,” Pulupa said.
Roper, the CalGEM spokesperson, said the agency is in discussions with the state water board to design a truncated environmental review process for new injection wells that have typically not been subject to them because they’re part of so-called non-expansion projects.
In all these, it is evidence that it is not only Nigeria as a country that undergo the taste of corrupt practices in the hands of some the oil producing companies like the chevron, Mobile, Shell etc.
SOURCE: summarized from an article written by Capital & Main
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