California Study Into Fracking In Urban Environment Finds No Negative Environmental Impacts
This report about fracking in the Inglewood Oil Field in California is interesting, and important, for a number of reasons.
First, the Inglewood Oil Field is the nation’s largest urban oil play. Meaning people, lots of people, live right next to the oil operations. Thus, whatever environmental impacts from hydraulic fracturing there may would be most acutely felt in a place like this.
Second, this is California we’re talking about, and Los Angeles County to be specific. This is hardly a bastion of pro-oil sympathies. This study was done as a part of a legal settlement with Culver City, CA and reviewed by two different firms chosen by Los Angeles County.
The findings? Well, it turns out that fracking doesn’t really pose much in the way of environmental risks:
A long-awaited study released Wednesday says the controversial oil extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, would not harm the environment if used at the Inglewood Oil Field in the Baldwin Hills area.
The yearlong study included several issues raised by residents living around the field, such as the potential risks for groundwater contamination, air pollution and increased seismic activity.
For months, water wells on the 1,200-acre field were monitored. Data from ground and air monitors were collected and analyzed, but no effects were recorded before or after the technique was used, the study says.
“There were eight contributing studies addressing such things as vibrations at the surface, microseismic activity at depth, noise, ground movement measurements, subsidence, groundwater quality, methane in both soil and groundwater,” said Dan Tormey, technical director and principal at Cardno Entrix, the environmental consulting firm that conducted the study. “Each was a study that contributed to the [overall] hydraulic fracturing study.”
Plains Exploration and Production Co., the owner and operator of the oil field, paid for the review as part of a settlement agreement with Culver City and environmental and community groups. The report was reviewed by two independent firms selected by the company and Los Angeles County.
Once you cut through the hysteria created by environmental and political activists, fracking is proven to be a perfectly safe process again and again.
The truth is that much of the hysteria is driven not by actual concerns over fracking – we all want clean air and water – but rather frustration from environmentalists over the fact that their “peak oil” theories haven’t panned out. They predicted, for decades, that we were running out of oil. What fracking has proven is that we have enough oil and gas reserves here in America to last us for centuries, which removes a lot of the impetus behind the subsidies and mandates propping up so-called “green” energies.
Tags: california, energy, fracking, oil
