[GPSCC-chat] Fw: Thoughts from Santa Barbara activist on failed fracking ban measure

[Caroline Yacoub]

On Thursday, November 13, 2014 1:37 PM, Brian Haberly <brianhaberly at gmail.com> wrote:
 


HI again friends!  Here is a short email from one of the Santa Barbara area activists that worked on the fracking ban measure in Santa Barbara County that went down to defeat, largely buried under $7-8 million in spending by Chevron et al.

Katie Davis drives home the point that "extreme energy extraction" (just as we referenced it in our proposed Palo Alto resolutions) is so important to reference, since cyclic steam injection and acidizing as unconventional oil production practices each have their own associated problems.  It isn't "just" fracking that we're concerned about, but unconventional oil production as a whole.

Brian H.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Katie Davis <kdavis2468 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: [CAF_Members] ReminderL ALL CAF CALL: Today @ 5pm
To: Ash Lauth <alauth at biologicaldiversity.org>, "CAF_Members at googlegroups.com" <CAF_Members at googlegroups.com>



Good call last night on the elections. Thanks!

One other really important aspect I forgot to mention that hurt us in Santa Barbara is that you all have done a great job of demonizing fracking, but industry was able to distance themselves from fracking and say that isn't an issue here, and that cyclic steam injection is just fine and dandy and safe, and acidizing is just a normal thing you do to clean wells. Then they accuse us of being deceptive by saying it's a "fracking ban" when it's really more than that. 

I think the fracking-only focus is risky for us as campaign in Santa Barbara showed. From a climate perspective, steam injection is actually worse than fracking. It is more carbon-intensive.

Example -- we first grew alarmed a year ago when a 130-well project came up for approval. This one project will use 300,000 gallons of water a day and emit 88,000 tons GHGs -- equal to adding over 17,000 cars to our roads, and would be one of the largest sources of emissions in the county. After that project was approved, the company announced plans for 7,700 wells! At the same time a chinese company invested $665 million in local oil fields and announced plans to greatly increase production. A few other companies have also submitted applications for expansion -- nearly1000 new wells this year in total. These are all cyclic steam injection. Companies here also experimenting with fracking, but having more success with steam injection here (same process used in Canadian tarsands).


If we are concerned about the climate, we can't just be concerned about fracking, but a boom in all unconventional oil production -- like what's happening here in Santa Barbara County.

At the convergence I suggest we talk about the issue of targeting fracking specifically vs. extreme oil extraction in general that industry planning to use the extract "tight" oil in California. 

Thanks,

Katie

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