San Benito County officials this week affirmed the fact that the “Protect Our Water” Initiative slated for the vote this November allows conventional oil drilling in the vast majority of the county – in General Plan designations called “agricultural” and “ranch.”
That flies in the face of what some of the opponents of the ballot measure have been claiming for months now: that the initiative would ban all oil drilling throughout the entire county.
Mike Kelly, assistant associate planner for the county, took some time to pore over the actual wording in the six-page initiative, and its summary, and said he figured out how much land would be affected by the ballot measure regarding conventional oil drilling.
“It would make up three percent of the county,” said Kelly. There are 890,000 acres of land in this county, he said, and only 10,000 acres are in the rural districts – the suburban areas where people live. “That would be areas around Aromas, some acreage west of Highway 101, and suburbs like Ridgemark,” Kelly added.
In short, the initiative, if passed, would allow conventional oil drilling in 97 percent of the county, contrary to what detractors are saying.
Confirming Kelly’s statement, Assistant County Counsel Barbara Thompson says the initiative summary calls for a ban of conventional oil drilling only in five-acre “rural” designations. The county’s GIS map shows that the vast majority of land in the county is outside those areas.
The ballot bid qualified handily in March when members of the local environmental group San Benito Rising gathered 1,000 signatures more than needed to land it on the November ballot.
According to the packet for the supervisors’ meeting slated for Tuesday, July 8, the oil and gas industry seems to be pushing the Board of Supervisors to alter the summary that will be placed before voters’ eyes on their ballots in November. Those in opposition to the measure are pushing the board to mislead voters into thinking the initiative would ban all conventional oil throughout the county. Residents concerned about this are urged to attend the July 8 meeting starting at 9 a.m. in the County Administration Building on Fourth and West streets.
The main objective of the grass roots measure is to ban the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing — fracking — on all land inside the county, with the exception of federal BLM land, on which the county has no jurisdiction. It would also ban other high intensity petroleum operations such as acidization and cyclic steam injection, which is already occurring at the 15-well Indian Project near the Pinnacles National Park.
The rationale is that these new techniques are more dangerous and damaging than conventional techniques. Locals behind the push say fracking and well stimulation using hydrochloric acid imperil scarce ground water, especially in seismically active areas – which means the entire county. However, existing high intensity operations with vested rights are granted a “grace” period of one year, which may be extended an extra two years.
To be exact, the initiative would ban all petroleum operations in residential areas, which the General Plan designates as Rural, Rural Transitional, Rural Residential, Rural/Urban, and Sphere of Influence Rural/Urban. This means that oil and gas operations are not allowed where people live, like the suburbs or rural housing clusters such as Ridgemark Estates or Quail Hollow– not farm lands and ranch lands in so-called agricultural zones, which is most of the county. Initiative backers say heavy industrial activities like oil and gas operations are not appropriate in areas where people reside.
The Initiative has no bearing on federal BLM lands, which constitutes about one-fourth of the county. In those areas, they can continue fracking, even if the Initiative passes in November.