Earl Ofari Hutchinson
After years of spirited
battles by environmental activists, stacks of lawsuits, countless reports and
studies by health officials, and the expression of concern by President Obama,
California state officials finally agreed to impose some regulations on the
practice of fracking. Governor Jerry Brown put the official state imprimatur on
this concern when he released proposed draft regulations that would regulate
fracking. Fracking entails pumping chemically treated high pressure water into
the ground to fracture rock and soil to release more oil. The furious debate is
over just how much of a health and environmental danger this poses. There’s
much evidence that fracking contaminates the soil, water, air quality,
increases the danger of earthquakes, and has damaged homes and structures in
residential neighborhoods that front oil drilling sites. The best example is
the Inglewood oil field. Homeowner groups and environmentalists in the area
abutting the fields have fought a protracted fight to get the state to impose either
a total ban or moratorium on fracking until it’s fully determined what the
health and safety risks are.
This is where local
elected officials that represent the area come in. When fracking first became a
major issue and concern of homeowners and residents in the Inglewood, Baldwin
Hills, and Culver City area, local officials were largely silent about it. As
the evidence mounted that fracking posed real dangers to health and property
values, some officials called for studies of the practice, and later a
temporary moratorium on fracking to determine how severe the dangers were. But
there were other officials who still maintained a wall of silence on the issue,
or, as some enraged neighborhood groups charged, were openly or quietly taking
funding from the oil drilling site operators. They, of course, have countless
piles of money to dump into the fight against any anti-fracking controls, and
that means money to plop into the coffers of compliant politicians. They in
essence had a vested interested in stonewalling efforts to get a moratorium on
fracking. But the issue could not be ignored no matter how great the effort to
suppress action against the practice.
The state legislature
during this period was also deeply complicit in torpedoing any action on
fracking. Bills that eventually were introduced after relentless pressure from
environmentalists either were tabled in committee or voted down. This only
intensified the determination of environmentalists, homeowner groups and some
local officials to get the legislature to take action. It finally did when it
finally passed a bill calling for regulations, and thus Governor Brown’s
subsequent action on it.
However, there are two
gaping problems with this. One is that the proposed regulations simply require
the oil companies to tell what chemicals they use in the fracking process and
some monitoring of them. It would not require the companies to implement any
special controls to insure that the chemicals used pose no threat to the air,
groundwater, not to mention damage to homes and streets in the area surrounding
a field such as the Inglewood oil field. Even with this minimal disclosure
requirement there is a loophole. There are exemptions against them disclosing
the chemicals if they infringe on oil industry trade secrets. Who determines
that? The oil companies do, of course. The state will do two more studies on
the safety and environmental impact of fracking. But those reports won’t be
finished until 2015. The other problem is that of the five cities chosen to
hold public hearings on the proposed state fracking regulations. Los Angeles
was not one of them. This is both a glaring and insulting omission. It was the battle
over the drilling hazards at the Inglewood field that sparked state and local
officials to take the action they did take on fracking.
This is now the new litmus
test for current local elected officials and those who want to be elected in
the future. Put simply, will they fully support a moratorium on fracking and if
it’s confirmed that fracking does pose the severe health and environmental
risks that activists claim and many studies bear out, will they support a full
ban on the practice? In any election now and in the future, this is the point
blank question that any elected official in Los Angeles must answer without any
equivocation. They also must also fully disclose any monies they have received
from the oil lobby. You can’t take gobs of oil lobby money without being
hopelessly compromised in assessing the real hazard of fracking. Brown and the
state legislature and some local elected officials took the first big step in
protecting the health and safety of Los Angeles residents by establishing
minimal rules on fracking. It’s clearly not enough. The Los Angeles City Council,
the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, and all state legislators that represent
L.A. County cities must continue to put relentless pressure on the oil industry
and regulatory agencies to control or end fracking. And this applies to all
future elected officials as well. If they won’t commit to that they don’t
deserve to hold office.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. Listen
to his weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles every Friday,
9:00 to 9:30 AM and every Saturday at Noon on KPFK-Radio, 90.7 FM.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
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