Good Morning California! How Long Have Gas Companies Been Fracking Around In Your Backyard?

By Theodora Filis

What most Californians don’t realize is that fracking has been taking place throughout their state for over sixty years. US towns and communities have been in the midst of an unprecedented gas drilling boom, using a process called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking." With each new drill comes frightening reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, industrial disasters, and explosions.

Fracking involves injecting thousands of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals into the earth at extremely high pressure and speeds to fracture underground shale deposits thus releasing natural gas and oil. Homeowners living near fracked wells have been complaining that their drinking water has been contaminated with methane, a key component in natural gas.

California does not track the number of fracked wells, or their location. The state's Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) said that it "does not believe that fracking is widely used" in the state. More recently, DOGGR reported, that the practice is "used for a brief period to stimulate the production of oil and gas wells," but added in its report, that "the division doesn't believe the practice is nearly as widespread as it is in the Eastern US for shale gas production."

Today, Californians are waking up to the unfortunate reality that hundreds of locations around their state, including nearby Monterey County, have been fracked. An article, published by Mother Jones, said that according to a report released by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), fracking is much more common in California than the regulators would like you to believe.

According to Mother Jones, a team of EWG investigators has unearthed dozens of industry documents and academic papers indicating that the practice has been going on in at least six California counties for 60 years or more. And evidence suggests that it's still going strong: "We asked Halliburton, 'What percentage of wells are you fracking in Kern County, for example?,'" says Bill Allayud, EWG's California Director of Governmental Affairs. "And they said 50 to 60 percent of oil wells." A 2008 paper by the Halliburton subsidiary Pinnacle Technologies detailed the widespread current use of fracking in California.

Even after sixty years, the state of California is only now learning about fracking and how attractive their land is to gas companies. Officials, in Monterey County, have given the OK for a Denver-based oil company, Venoco, to drill exploratory wells in the Hames Valley, using fracking technology. Hames Valley, home to oil drilling, will now see a boom in gas drilling.

Update as of 7/12/23:

Environmental justice organizations representing low-income communities and people of color have protested fracking for its potential water contamination and the methane released by the process. Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas.

Newsom, a Democrat, called in 2020 for state lawmakers to ban the practice by 2024. But a proposal before lawmakers failed, leading Newsom to direct CalGEM to proceed with the timeline on its own. It’s only one piece of Newsom’s climate change agenda, which includes a complete end to oil and gas production in the state by 2045, long after he’s left office.