At least four more exploratory oil wells will be drilled in western Kings County, according to an agreement signed last week by a Canadian company.
Zodiac Exploration Inc. has announced an agreement with Aera Energy LLC to drill at least two vertical and two horizontal wells northeast of Kettleman City. In return, Aera gets a 50 percent stake in the potential oil production on 19,600 acres of Zodiac-leased land in the area.
Zodiac drilled two exploratory wells last year, stirring new interest in oil production in a region that has seen oil discoveries in the Kettleman Hills in the past.
“If a reintroduction of that industry on the Valley floor takes place, certainly it’s a positive move for the South Valley,” said John Lehn, Kings County Economic Development Corp. CEO. “The assumption is that it will help bring wealth to the region and offer jobs to local residents.”
But it’s not clear that the drilling will be commercially successful.
Zodiac has been using new cost-saving technology involving deep vertical wells, which then fan out horizontally into multiple horizontal layers of rock.
The company is also experimenting with a controversial technique called fracturing or “fracking.” The process involves injecting pressurized water and chemicals underground to break up rock and allow trapped oil to escape to the surface.
News
Latino voters value conservation – so much so that protecting the environment is just as important as improving the economy to this fast growing section of the electorate, a recent survey found.
The California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund released the results on Oct. 4 of a statewide poll that gauged the environmental and economic values of likely Latino voters and found that 90 percent agree that the state can “protect the environment and create jobs at the same time.”
Environmental watchdogs filed suit this month to stop that $12 dirty-air fee now attached to your vehicle registration. Keep your eye on this one, folks.
It’s all about the $30 million ozone fine that the San Joaquin Valley pays each year for missing a cleanup deadline in 2010. You are paying most of that fine, and the lawsuit says that’s wrong.
This is also about who pollutes and who pays in the Valley — where there have been more ozone violations in the past 12 years than any other place in the country.
The lawsuit says the fine has been illegally shifted from major industries to residents. Local air authorities and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency don’t see it quite that way.
Host: Dolores Weller, CVAQ Associate Director
Guest: Daniel Krause of Californians for High Speed Rail joins the program to talk about the latest on High Speed Rail in California and the Central Valley, including air quality impacts, the latest draft EIR for the Fresno-Bakersfield link and CA4HSR’s own Valley land-use research.
Fresno County won’t join the state and federal governments in trying to get an accurate measurement of the Valley’s air quality. Current measurements are not accurate because one of the Valley’s key monitoring stations has been moved.
Since the start of the 2010 school year, thirsty students at Turlock High School can visit a “hydration station,” a state-of-the-art drinking fountain that provides filtered and chilled water.
The high-tech fountain, which has also filled nearly 9,000 water bottles at Turlock High, south of Modesto, is part of the district’s effort to comply with recently passed state and federal laws that require free, fresh water to be served at schools wherever meals are served or eaten.
Susana De Anda, 32, cofounder, Community Water Center
Résumé: The daughter of a Mexican-immigrant farmworker, De Anda’s first job was as an environmental activist, tackling the farm and animal-factory industries in California’s San Joaquin Valley, which has the state’s lowest-quality drinking water. In 2006, she cofounded the Community Water Center, which now has a staff of eight.
People in the San Joaquin Valley are paying a $30 million annual penalty for air pollution until the air clears up. At least, that was the deal until the state’s spat with a landowner got in the way.
No matter how clean the air gets, the penalty might remain until the state can smooth things over with the miffed landowner — Arvin-Edison Water Storage District, which booted a key air-monitoring site off its land.
The state and the Valley need an air monitor back on that land.
The site, downwind of smoggy Bakersfield, had become notorious for recording more ozone violations than any other place in the country, recording the Valley’s highest ozone concentrations. That means it would likely be the last place where pollution will clear up here, experts say.
To prove the Valley’s air meets the federal standard in the future, the monitor must be returned to that site and show the air is clean there.
The Arvin-Edison Water Storage District should allow the California Air Resources Board to reinstall an air quality monitor on its land. Air quality is one of the biggest health issues facing the San Joaquin Valley and Arvin is ground zero for that battle, recording some of the highest levels of pollution in the nation over the years. Having reliable and long-running data from one location is critical to the health of the community and the region’s challenge to meet clean air standards.
Environmental and health groups on Friday began legal action against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, protesting a decision that shifts the fines for ozone pollution in the Central Valley away from major industrial sources and onto residents through an additional tax on vehicle registration.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, claims that EPA violated the federal Clean Air Act when it waived the fines on most stationary sources of ozone in the Valley.