BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 591
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator S. Joseph Simitian, Chairman
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 591
AUTHOR: Wieckowski
AMENDED: May 27, 2011
FISCAL: Yes HEARING DATE: June 27, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Peter Cowan
SUBJECT : HYDRAULIC FRACTURING
SUMMARY :
Existing law :
1) Establishes the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal
Resources (DOGGR) within California's Department of
Conservation and grants its Supervisor (supervisor) broad
authority over activities related to the recovery of oil
and gas (Public Resources Code §3106).
2) Authorizes the supervisor to publish any publications,
reports, maps, or other printed matter relating to oil and
gas, for which there may be public demand (§3109).
3) Requires the owner or operator of any oil and gas well to
keep, or cause to be kept, a careful and accurate log, core
record, and history of the drilling of the well which must
periodically be reported to DOGGR (§3210 et seq.).
4) Under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requires
the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set minimum
federal requirements for all below ground injection
processes, but excludes natural gas storage and hydraulic
fracturing injections (unless they contain diesel fuels).
5) Authorizes Regional Water Quality Control Boards (RWQCBs)
to regulate evaporation ponds that are near or above usable
groundwater (Water Code §13260 et seq.).
This bill :
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1) Requires those who carry out the hydraulic fracturing of a
well to provide to the well's owner or operator a complete
list of the chemical constituents used in the hydraulic
fracturing fluid and all of the associated standardized
Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) identification numbers.
2) Requires that the history of drilling at the well provided
to DOGGR be modified to include: the source and amount of
water used in the exploration or production of the well, a
description of the use, recovery and disposal of any
radiological components or tracers injected into the well,
and if hydraulic fracturing is used, disclose the chemical
information data described above.
3) Clarifies the reporting requirements of the owner or
operator of the well to DOGGR of the history of work
performed at the well including copies of all appropriate
logs, tests or surveys performed and the hydraulic
fracturing data described above.
4) Requires DOGGR to make the hydraulic fracturing data
collected publicly available on its own website on a
well-by-well basis.
COMMENTS :
1) Purpose of Bill . According to the author AB 591 "will
serve to provide the public, property owners, and water
purveyors with important information regarding what
chemicals are to be injected into wells and the source and
amount of water used in the Ýhydraulic fracturing ]
process. ÝAB 591] is intended to keep regulators ahead of
the increased use of hydraulic fracturing so that we don't
experience water quality and other problems that have
occurred in states including Pennsylvania, New York, Texas,
and Wyoming."
2) Hydraulic fracturing , or "fracking" is a well treatment for
increasing oil or gas (hydrocarbon) recovery. As the name
implies the hydraulic fluid is pumped at immense pressure
into a well where it escapes through perforations in the
well lining and causes the surrounding rock to fracture.
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The "fracturing fluid" is comprised primarily of water with
a small fraction of other chemicals as well as a proppant
such as sand that hold fractures open after they've been
created. These cracks or fractures allow oil and natural
gas to flow more freely into the well where they are pumped
to the surface. Depending on the type of well and the
target rock formation being fractured, the quantity and
constituents chemicals and proppants will vary. According
to the EPA as much as two to five million gallons of water
are used to conduct the hydraulic fracturing treatment.
Typically conducted after the initial well drilling or when
a well is reworked, hydraulic fracturing is common practice
in both vertical wells where the bore goes straight down
into the target rock layer and in horizontal bores where
the well turns and runs horizontally though the target rock
strata for as much as several thousand feet. Recent
advances in the use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal
drilling have made shale gas recovery and coal bed methane
recovery much more economical. As a result areas such as
Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wyoming have seen dramatic
increases in well applications and the use of hydraulic
fracturing.
3) Use in California . Currently DOGGR does not track
hydraulic fracturing activities, thus the full extent of
its use is unknown. However, according to oil and gas
industry experts, hydraulic fracturing has been used in
California for several decades. Wells in Kern, Ventura,
Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties, and potentially
other counties have been hydraulically fractured. Industry
reports suggest that hydraulic fracturing will most likely
increase statewide. The Monterey shale formation, which
stretches from Northern to Southern California, is
receiving increasing attention. Several oil companies have
purchased leases covering several hundreds of thousands of
acres to drill the Monterey shale. According to industry
experts and a 2008 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)
article, hydraulic fracturing has potential to increase
output from many Northern California gas reservoirs
including gas sands. If these investments produce positive
returns, the state could see a proliferation of hydraulic
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fracturing operations in the near future. However, at least
one drilling location in Monterey County has already
generated significant community concern and opposition.
4) Current regulation . The below ground injection of most
chemicals is subject to the minimum regulations of SDWA and
are permitted through the underground injection control
program to ensure that "Injection well owners and operators
may not site, construct, operate, maintain, convert, plug,
abandon, or conduct any other injection activity that
endangers underground source of drinking water."
The federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 modified SDWA to
exclude "the underground injection of fluids or propping
agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic
fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal
production activities" from the definition of "underground
injection". Nonetheless a congressional investigation
found that between 2005 and 2009 26,466 gallons of
hydraulic fracturing fluids containing diesel were injected
into California wells, yet no underground injection permits
had been sought or granted for this activity, in apparent
violation of SDWA.
On February 16, 2011, in reply to an inquiry from Senator
Pavley the DOGGR supervisor acknowledged that DOGGR had no
reliable information on the extent of hydraulic fracturing
activities in California and has imposed no reporting or
permitting requirements on the practice despite the clear
regulatory authority to do so.
5) Fracturing fluid . As indicated above, in many instances,
the fluids used in hydraulic fracturing are water-based.
There are some formations, however, that are not fractured
effectively by water-based fluids because clay or other
substances in the rock absorb water. For these formations,
complex mixtures with a multitude of chemical additives may
be used to thicken or thin the fluids, improve the flow of
the fluid, or even kill bacteria that can reduce fracturing
performance.
According to a congressional report, between 2005 and 2009,
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oil and gas companies throughout the United States used
hydraulic fracturing products containing 29 chemicals that
are: (a) known or possible human carcinogens, (b) regulated
under the SDWA for their risk to human health, or (c)
listed as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
In some cases, companies injected fluids containing
chemicals that they themselves could not identify as they
did not have access to proprietary information about
products purchased "off the shelf" from chemical suppliers.
Fracturing fluids may also contain radiological tracers
used to determine well integrity and the extent of the rock
fracturing.
Currently no disclosure of the quantities or constituents
of the fracturing fluids is required. AB 591 requires that
a list of chemical constituents be supplied to DOGGR and
that DOGGR post that information on its webpage. However,
AB 591 does not require reporting of the total amount of
fracturing fluid used. While the chemical constituents
list provides information about the type of risks posed, it
does not indicate the potential magnitude of that risk. A
more protective reporting requirement would at the very
least provide the total quantity of non-water fracturing
fluid and a ranked list of the fluid constituents.
6) Risks to below ground aquifers . The risk to fresh water
aquifers is difficult to estimate without information about
the depth of local aquifers and the hydrocarbon bearing
strata. In some cases the strata being fractured is
several thousand feet below fresh water aquifers, in others
the target strata are located closer to usable aquifers.
In fields that are heavily, developed if the cap rock
separating the hydrocarbons from the aquifer are heavily
perforated by wells the likelihood of fracturing fluid
migration to the aquifer may be increased.
A more likely contamination scenario is a well failure,
either in the well casing or due to inadequate cementing.
DOGGR does have a regulatory program that governs well
casing construction. Despite regulations, well failures
still occur. A 2000 SPE article regarding an oil field in
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Kern County explained that "the well failure rate, although
lower than that experienced in the 1980s, is still
economically significant at 2 to 6% of active wells per
year." Furthermore, a recent area of review evaluated by
DOGGR in Southern California found that 20 of 228 wells
needed remediation.
7) Water source . Given the large amounts of water necessary
to hydraulically fracture a single well and the likelihood
that it will become contaminated, it is important for the
state to track the use of fresh water. AB 591 requires
annual reporting of the quantity and source water used at a
well.
8) Waste water disposal . Following a hydraulic fracturing
treatment some, but not all of the fracturing fluid is
"flowed back" to the surface. (estimates range from
15-80%). Additional fluid may be removed from the well
with "produced water" once the well goes into production.
In addition to chemicals contained in the fracturing fluid
initially, this water may be further contaminated with
naturally occurring radioactive materials, heavy metals
such as mercury and arsenic, or chemicals such as benzene.
The amounts of produced water are reported on monthly
basis, but it is not clear that "flowed back" water is
reported as the majority occurs before the well goes into
production.
Water may be disposed of by injection into waste disposal
wells, recycled for subsequent hydraulic fracturing
activities or evaporated in lined ponds. According to the
RWQCBs the use of evaporation ponds has become less common
with reinjection being favored. Given the large volumes of
wastewater and the potential severity of its contamination
the Committee should require additional reporting of the
quantities and fate of water removed from wells that have
been hydraulically fractured.
9) Recent budget actions . DOGGR has been relatively
underfunded in recent years, given its extensive
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obligations, responsibilities and changing oil and gas
recovery technology. To help rectify this and improve
DOGGR's regulatory program activities, the Legislature
approved 17 new positions in the 2010 - 2011 budget year.
According to the Legislative Analyst's Office, these
positions have only recently been filled and it is not yet
possible to evaluate how these additional staff will impact
DOGGR's performance. Nevertheless in the 2011 - 2012 budget
year, the Department of Conservation requested an
additional 36 positions to improve DOGGR's environmental
compliance, underground injection control and construction
site review. Eighteen positions and an additional $2.3
million were approved in the relevant Budget sub-committees
of both houses. Additional budget control language was
approved in the Assembly sub-committee's agenda to express
the intent of the Legislature that some of the funds
appropriated be used to collect and disseminate information
to the public regarding hydraulic fracturing activities in
California.
10)Amendments needed .
a) As discussed in the Senate Committee on Natural
Resources and Water, amendments are needed:
i) To define "Hydraulic fracturing" to mean: a
technique used in preparing a well that typically
involves the pressurized injection of water and a
mix of chemicals, compounds and materials into an
underground geologic formation in order to fracture
the formation, thereby causing or enhancing, for
the purposes of this division, the production of
oil or gas from a well.
ii) To require DOGGR to prepare an annual report
on hydraulic fracturing activities beginning
January 1, 2013.
iii) To delete "paragraph (1) of" on Page 7, line
32.
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b) An amendment is needed to add the hydraulic
fracturing of a well to the list of actions that
initiate the 60 day reporting clock and to clarify that
any of those activities start the reporting clock.
c) An amendment is needed to require reporting of the
amount of waste water removed from the well, from the
initiation of drilling, and how it is disposed as
discussed in comment #8.
SOURCE : Environmental Working Group
SUPPORT : Board of Supervisors of the County of Los
Angeles, California League of Conservation
Voters, Clean Energy, Clean Water Action,
Environment California, Food and Water Watch,
Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club
California, Water Replenishment District of
Southern California.
OPPOSITION : None on file.