As state regulators finish work on a minimum buffer zone between oil and gas wells and sensitive locations like homes and schools, a key detail many will look for when the proposal comes out later this year is whether it would apply only to new drilling, or to existing production sites as well.
A draft rule the state released in October would allow wells already operating within the proposed 3,200-foot setback to continue, but only if they install monitoring equipment and vapor containment systems to make sure petroleum emissions are not risking the health of nearby residents.
Environmental groups are pushing to extend the rule to ban all oil and gas production within the buffer zone — roughly 28,000 wells, or about 27 percent of California's total, according to a new analysis by oil Fractracker, a group calling for tighter regulation of the industry.
The report released earlier this month sheds new light on what might be gained and lost if the proposed buffer tolerates or bans existing wells.
A little more than two-thirds of people living within the proposed setbacks are people of color, Fractracker found. It also determined wells now operating within the proposed buffer are, as a whole, a little less efficient than those outside of it.
It noted about 20,000 of the wells within the proposed setbacks, about 71 percent, produce less than 10 barrels of oil per month.
"Neighborhood drilling poses significant health harms to surrounding community members and it isn't even a strategic zone for oil production," said spokeswoman Aimee Dewing with Last Chance Alliance, a group calling for a ban on production within the proposed buffer zone.
Scientific studies have linked proximity to oil production with a variety of serious illnesses and harmful health outcomes.
Industry groups say too much production would be lost if all wells were capped within the proposed setback, and that because California has a hard time bringing in oil from U.S. states other than Alaska, any reductions in volume caused by the new rule will only make the state more dependent on foreign oil.
CEO Rock Zierman of the California Independent Petroleum Association questioned the suggestion that wells within the proposed setbacks were significantly less productive than others.
"I don't think being within 3,200 feet of a structure makes a well less productive," he said.
The different does appear to be small: Fractracker reported that in 2019 and 2020, about 24 percent of the state's oil came from the same 27 percent of wells located within the proposed setbacks.
CalGEM, the agency drawing up the setbacks, said by email it is reviewing comments and conducting "targeted stakeholder outreach" while it finalizes text of the proposal and develops what's called a standardized regulatory impact assessment.
The division declined to say what adjustments have been made to the draft it unveiled last fall. Any changes will be evident, it said, when CalGEM sends the proposal to the state Office of Administrative Law for formal rulemaking, which it plans to do by the end of the year.
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Positive Cases Among Kern Residents: 242,803
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Deaths: 2,323
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Recovered and Presumed Recovered Residents: 238,568
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Percentage of all cases that are unvaccinated: 77.11
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Percentage of all hospitalizations that are unvaccinated: 84.08
Updated: 4/12/21
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April 18, 2022 at 06:00AM
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Groups push for ban on existing wells within proposed oil buffer zones - The Bakersfield Californian
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