The Santa Barbara County
Board of Supervisors is scheduled to approve a response to a grand jury
investigation into 1,374 idle oil wells in the county that disagrees with the
findings and rejects the resulting recommendations when it meets Tuesday in Santa
Maria.
The response is part of
the board’s administrative agenda, which consists of items generally approved
in a single vote unless a supervisor pulls one for discussion or for a separate
vote or a member of the public asks to comment on one.
Grand jurors made four
findings and four recommendations to the board in their report released Dec.
20.
In their proposed
response, supervisors wholly disagree with all four findings and say none of
the four recommendations will be implemented.
In general, the grand jury
found the health and environmental risks from idle wells are not being
adequately addressed; the county is too understaffed to adequately monitor idle
wells; code provisions requiring drilling equipment and derricks to be removed
are not fully enforced; and the county may face financial liabilities from
inadequate monitoring.
The “idle wells” referred
to in the report are 926 “long-term idle wells,” those inactive for at least
eight years, and 448 “inactive wells,” those out of production more than two
but less than eight years, identified by the California Geologic Energy
Management Division in 2019.
At that time, the county
also had 4,215 “abandoned wells,” which had been out of production for two
years or more but whose owners or operators applied for permits and followed
procedures for taking them out of service.
Those procedures included
plugging the wells with cement to prevent hydrocarbons from leaking into
groundwater or soil or onto the surface.
Only one well in the
county in 2019 was classified an “orphaned well,” where the owner had declared
bankruptcy, become insolvent or simply deserted it without taking steps to
properly seal it.
The rest of the 1,028
wells in the county at that time were considered “active wells.”
Grand jury's findings
The grand jury noted oil
seeping from both active and idle wells can contaminate the soil and
groundwater, and leaking methane gas can cause air pollution.
But the report said
because idle wells are usually unattended, the seepage and leaks can become
extensive before they are discovered, thus posing a greater risk to the public
and environment.
“An example of the effects
of seepage can be seen in the Santa Maria Valley, where there were thousands of
active oil wells in the past,” the report says. “Some homes in Santa Maria had
to be demolished because the area’s soil had been contaminated by seepage from
old wells that had not been properly abandoned and plugged.
“There appears to have
been no county remedial action on a number of the old wells around Orcutt, and
no action by the owner to abandon them,” the report continues. “Abandonment
under the required legal procedures would have led to capping. In the absence
of capping, the health and safety of the area are not secure.”
The grand jury recommended
supervisors direct the Planning and Development Department to identify health
and environmental risks and determine actual and potential fiscal labilities
from idle wells in annual reports to the board.
It also recommended
supervisors direct Planning and Development to maintain enough trained
personnel to staff the Petroleum Unit of its Energy, Minerals and Compliance
Division and to enforce County Code requirements for removing equipment and
derricks from idle wells.
Supervisors' response
The board’s proposed
response says annual Planning and Development, County Fire Department and
County Air Pollution Control District inspections of active and idle wells provide
sufficient regulatory oversight to minimize risks to public health and the
environment.
However, the response says
in order to provide annual well inspection data to the public, within one year
Planning and Development will launch a public-facing web portal that lists
inspection dates and results for each well that’s inspected.
In the proposed response,
the board also says it won’t require a report on fiscal liabilities because
those are the responsibility of the state and the well operator.
The response also says the
board won’t implement the recommendation on increased staffing because an
Energy, Minerals and Compliance Division part-time supervisor and another staff
member are trained and available to assist with annual inspections.
As for requiring Planning
and Development to enforce code requirements for removing equipment, the
proposed response says that’s not warranted because the storage of idle well
equipment is regulated by the department’s Petroleum Unit through annual
inspections.
The response also notes
that while County Code requires timely removal of equipment from new well
drilling sites and from abandoned well sites, it does not require equipment to
be removed from idle well locations.
Santa Ynez Valley News
Mike Hodgson
March 4, 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment