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Fracking In Southern California Garners Renewed Attention

Sarah Collins |
October 29, 2013 | 12:11 a.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

The city of Long Beach (Flickr/Creative Commons/kla4067)
The city of Long Beach (Flickr/Creative Commons/kla4067)
State officials have said that, up to until recently, they were unaware of the amount of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, taking place in waters off Seal Beach, Huntington Beach and Long Beach. Home to several oil companies, the popular beach cities banned new oil leases in 1969 due to an oil platform blowout in Santa Barbara. Because expanding is prohibited, oil companies have turned to natural gas.

After an AP report in August, the state of California launched an investigation surrounding the frequency in which fracking is used. California officials said originally that no offshore fracking near shore waters occurred. Officials now raise questions regarding the assurance of fracking being practiced safely.

“We still need to sort out what authority, if any, we have over fracking operations in state waters," Alison Dettmer, deputy director of the California Coastal Commission told the Associated Press. "It's very complicated.”

Oil companies have used fracking at least 203 times at six sites in the past two decades, according to interviews and drilling records obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request.

The AP’s report in August entailed fracking in federal waters off California. The state oil permitting agency does not track fracking. 

A new law will take effect in 2015 on methods to increase oversight of fracking. Until then, the state continues its investigation into the extent of fracking. Environmental groups plea for an end to the practice altogether.

Fracking involves shooting water, sand, and a mix of chemicals into the water at high pressures to clear rock wells or crack rock formations to obtain oil. 

The city of Long Beach has the highest amount of concentrated fracking. According to the city's Gas and Oil Department, Long Beach transferred $352 million of $581 million in profits to state coffers in fiscal year 2013 from onshore and offshore operations. Fracking accounts for about 10 percent of the work while most of the oil is obtained through traditional drilling. The department says that fracking is safe.

No one is tracing the concentration or amounts of chemicals injected into the ocean for fracking, though in September a state law passed declaring a necessitation for that information beginning in 2015.

Fracking fluids contain hundreds of chemicals, some unknown due to protected trade secrets. Several of the known chemicals are harmful to fish larvae, crustaceans and bottom-dwellers. Research involving traditional offshore oil exploration found that drilling fluids can cause reproductive harm to some marine creatures.

Contact Staff Reporter Sarah Collins here. Follow her on Twitter here.



 

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