The San Juan Bautista City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday to endorse Measure J, the controversial ballot measure that would ban certain types of oil and gas extraction methods in San Benito County. The council heard from both sides of the issue and took public comment before its vote.
Measure J proponent Andy Hsia-Coron of Aromas spoke first, calling the issue “the most engaging issue in this county in many,many years.” He reminded the council that the initiative would not ban traditional oil extraction methods in the county, despite industry claims that focus on the restrictions in the measure. “It prohibits the kind of methods that have proven in other placees to have a higher risk of contaminating what is our most precious resource in our county — other than the people — the groundwater.”
Hsia-Coron said the $1.9 million raised by Measure J opponents from the oil industry “is the biggest media payout we have ever seen in our county” and a challenge to overcome. “It’s hard to get past the television commercials and the kind of innundation people have had around this issue,” he said, noting that proponents have visited every neighborhood, knocking on doors to get the word out.
No on J spokeswoman Kristina Chavez-Wyatt, representing San Benito United for Energy Indpendence, told the council that most of the oil California uses is imported from “areas of conflict” in the Middle East, so expanding oil and gas production stateside would benefit the country. She contradicted Hsia-Coron’s claims about the failure rate of wells and noted how oil wells in San Ardo produce nine barrels of water for every barrelof oil they produce and that water is added back to the Salinas River acquifer.
“Measure J is counterproductive,” Chavez-Wyatt said, adding that there is no evidence that hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has caused environmental harm in California.
Richard Bianchi, president of the San Benito County Farm Bureau — which opposes Measure J — said the issue is “real simple” for his organization: “It’s about property rights. If anybody thought for a moment that we don’t appreciate our water; we live by our water.”
Hollister attorney Brad Sullivan, who was asked by his law partner, Paul Rovella, to address the council, said that if Measure J passes, “there are going to be two lawsuits that are going to come out of this instantly.” He said the county will have to defend itself from the state, which will claim that state law has precedence over local measures, and the other by landowners.Â
“The people who sign these petitions (to get it on the ballot) and who promoted it aren’t going to pay to defend the legality, the constitutionality of this,” Sullivan said.
San Juan City Council candidate Chris Martorana said that he sees “lots of signs” regarding Measure J in town, but he could think on only one that represented the No on J side. “It’s very cleear to all of us what the citizens of San Juan Bautista want to happen,” he said.
San Benito County Supervisor Margie Barrios, the lone supervisor who has publicly opposed Measure J, said she believes some of her colleagues are “rethinking their decisions” to support it.
“There’s no limit to the amount of money that’s going to be spent in order to defend this initiative,” she said, reiterating her claim that passage of the measure “will go down in history as the biggest mistake that this county has ever made.”
San Juan cattle rancher Joe Morris, a Measure J proponent, said he was surprised that Sullivan delivered “what amounts to a threat” about lawsuits if the measure passes. “What red-blooded American would sit back and say, ‘we’re not going to do do what we’re going to do'” because of the threat of a lawsuit? Morris said there is no energy independence “when you are connected to a world commodity market” and he pointed out that oil companies are not charitable organizations.
Addressing the No on J claim that the measure goes to far, Morris asked, “Is it too far to go to defend our groundwater? Is it too far to go to defend our right to have a beautiful tourism economy?”
Dr. Steven Scherr, an emergency medicine physician at Hazel Hawkins Hospital, said that he deals with risky decisions every day at work but he is concerned about the risks associated with enhanced oil extraction techniques. “Would you take a 6 percent chance that a fracking well fails?” he asked. “I don’t care about threats of lawyers or whatever. You need to do the right thing.”
Vice Mayor Tony Boch agreed with Scherr, saying, “The oil companies can tell you everything’s going to be fine, and it may be, but why take the chance. I can’t see putting our water at risk.”
Councilwoman Jolene Cosio said that there were “a lot of good speakers on both sides” and agreed that the threat of lawsuits was not enough to change her support for Measure J.
Councilman Rick Edge said that though the No on J side says no fracking is being conducted in or planned for San Benito County, “there are no promises or guarantees that fracking won’t occur.” He said that oil companies are not concerned about property rights. “They stand to make a lot of money if (the measure) doesn’t pass.”
Councilman Robert Lund called Measure J “just another measure that’s written bad” and said he had concerns about “what the county’s going to lose” if the measure passes.
Mayor Andy Moore, who pointed out that he is a conservative, said he would “never want anything to happen to our waterways” but he wondered where energy will come from if “every state, county and city says ‘not in my back yard’?”
In a roll call vote, the council voted 3-2 to support Measure J, with Lund and Moore opposed.