Carson City, Calif. Puts a Temporary Ban On Oil and Gas Drilling

The five members of the Carson City Council in California voted unanimously to put a 45-day ban on new oil and gas drilling. During that time, the city council will consider enacting a one-year ban. Occidental Petroleum would like to develop 200 wells in the Carson City area, located in Los Angeles County. Occidental reportedly said back in 2012, when it first proposed drilling the wells, that it plans to use hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking. However, the company now says it no longer plans to use fracking.

The council is not taking the word of Occidental Petroleum. As one councilman, Albert Robles, told Reuters, "There are too many questions, too many unknowns and too many possible bad consequences that could result from the city engaging in this activity.” Robles added, “These questions significantly outweigh any possible benefit to the residents of Carson.”

Report links earthquakes and fracking

Other California towns have also banned fracking, including Santa Cruz last September and more recently Los Angeles. However, Carson City is the first California town to ban all new oil and gas drilling. Two days prior to the vote, a 4.4-magnitude earthquake hit the Los Angeles area. The earthquake has not been blamed on fracking, but its epicenter was only 8 miles from a fracking well. A recently released report linked fracking to earthquakes. The report, titled "On Shaky Ground: Fracking, Acidizing and Increased Earthquake Risk in California," found that the majority of California active oil and gas wastewater injection wells are close to faults.

Specifically, the report found that 54 percent of California’s 1,553 active and new wastewater injection wells are within 10 miles of a recently active fault; 23 percent are within 5 miles, and 6 percent are within 1 mile. Some of California’s major population centers, including Los Angeles, are located in regions where large amounts of wastewater injection wells operate close to active faults. Seven of the 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest estimated yearly losses from earthquake damage are in California.

The report also found that there is inadequate research and monitoring, nor have there been any studies to evaluate the risk of induced earthquakes from California’s existing wastewater injection wells. Regulation does not protect California from the risk of induced earthquakes. “The best way to protect Californians is to halt hydraulic fracturing, acidizing, and other unconventional oil and gas recovery techniques,” the report states.

There is already fracking in California

There is much more fracking going on than the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources will admit to, according to a Environmental Working Group 2012 report. EWG researchers found documents that showed fracking has occurred in at least six California counties: Kern, Los Angeles, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara and Ventura. The researchers estimate that more than 750 California wells were fracked in 2009 alone -- which is “clearly an underestimate,” the researchers believe, because "only a subset of California wells are being counted.”

State regulation of fracking won't occur until 2015

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law, which puts regulation of fracking into place, but not until 2015. That means, unregulated fracking can occur in California until 2015. Not everyone is happy with Brown for not banning fracking, including some within his own party. Nine Democratic lawmakers sent him a letter in January asking him to prohibit all fracking “until health and environmental concerns are addressed.”

Many Californians are not happy with fracking in their state. Less than a week before Carson City Council members voted on the ban, thousands of Californians held what some call the largest anti-fracking rally, called Don’t Frack California, ever held in the state.

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