In Governor Brown’s inaugural address, he announced bold moves on furthering California’s leadership position on renewable energy and climate change, but he didn’t mention fracking.
As you know, NY State banned fracking in December and many want California to be next. They also want the state’s target to be 100% renewable energy, and the California Crossroads Tour is taking the message across the state.
Organized by Californians Against Fracking, activists will make these goals known in eight cities over the next nine days. The tour started in San Diego yesterday, with stops planned for Los Angeles, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Delano, San Juan Bautista, Oakland, and ending at the State Capitol in Sacramento on January 20.
It culminates on February 7 in the March for Real Climate Leadership in Oakland, where thousands of people will call for 100% renewable energy in California.
"If Jerry Brown wants to be a real climate leader he must stop enabling the biggest climate polluter by yanking his support of oil refinery expansion, blocking dangerous bomb trains, and putting a ban on fracking and other forms of dangerous and toxic fossil fuel extraction," say the organizers.
Californians are threatened by fracking in numerous ways – exposed to toxins by living near a drilling site; potentially explosive trains carrying oil through neighborhoods; air and groundwater pollution; earthquakes and methane emissions stoking global warming.
This map from the US Geological Survey shows that 300 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or more occurred from 2010-2012, up from a national average of 21 from 1967-2000. 
The oil and gas industry uses more than 2 million gallons of water on average each day, exacerbating the state’s drought, according to an analysis by Californians Against Fracking. This summer, officials ordered emergency shutdowns of 11 waste injection sites and reviews of 100 of them, because of suspicions of pumping potentially hazardous wastewater into drinking water and irrigation aquifers. At least nine sites have since been found to be contaminated with around 3 billion gallons of illegally injected wastewater in central California aquifers.
The Center for Biological Diversity identified over 100 violations of fracking disclosure rules, which have so far not been addressed. Another analysis finds 44 million pounds of air toxics used in just one year in the South Coast Air Basin.
In the midterm elections, Santa Cruz, Mendocino and San Benito counties banned fracking, as did the city of Beverly Hills. Two other cities will vote in March – La Habra Heights and Hermosa Beach in Los Angeles County. The city of Los Angeles banned fracking last year.
Fracking Regulations Go Into Effect in July
In the last days of 2014, regulators released the final rules for fracking that go into effect July 1, even though the required environmental studies won’t be completed until then.
- To receive a fracking permit, operators have to submit a detailed water management plan that includes pollution prevention to the state’s Water Board. They will have to monitor groundwater and air quality.
- Adjacent landowners must be notified that drilling will occur and companies have to pay for water sampling if requested.
- Operations must stop if an earthquake of magnitude 2.7 or greater occurs near a drilling site, but the rule doesn’t cover earthquakes at liquid waste injection sites, known to cause earthquakes in Oklahoma and Texas.
- Mandatory public disclosure of all chemicals used and testing of wells before and after fracking;
- There are no setback rules for where fracking can occur near homes, for example.
The Western States Petroleum Association spent $70 million since 2009 to influence fracking and other rules, according to Will Barrett, Senior Policy Analyst for the California chapter of the American Lung Association.
Governor Brown is also accused of rushing through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, called the environmentally destructive public works project in California history, and pushing water policies that are driving salmon and other fish populations to the edge of extinction.
Read our article, California Passes Fracking Legislation.
Learn more about the California Crossroads Tour:
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