California Drought Update
by Patrick Ruckert
June 11, 2015
http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org
https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate
This week’s report features Governor Brown doubling-down on his murderous policy of exacerbating the water crisis, and a special report on the suit filed last week charging him under the RICO statutes (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act) for his collaboration with the oil companies in the pumping of wastewater into California’s aquifers.
These two items make this report long enough, so we will save all the other developments reported this week for next week. That includes more water cuts to farmers, more declaration of water emergencies, increased cost for consumers for water, and a heightened interest and promotion of desalination.
Governor Brown doubles-down
On June 9, our RICO charged Governor Jerry Brown doubled-down in his public discussion of deliberately reducing the population of the State of California, as he emulates Prince Philip of Britain, who is famous for his statements for population reduction.
Speaking to the Board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Brown repeated the lie that human caused global warming was exacerbating California’s drought. “At some point, how many people can we accommodate?” he said.
Stating that, “It’s a very catastrophic existential threat that we have to take as seriously as though we were facing a military adversary,” Brown repeated his claim that, “We have wreaked havoc on our natural resources,” including “the water systems of this state.” Elaborating, he said, California could face a future of “fires, disease and all sorts of things we don’t ordinarily have to deal with.”
The only thing Brown proposed is building his twin tunnels under the Delta. And, speaking later at a California Conversation forum at the University of Southern California, he capped off his attempt to sell his fascist policy, calling it the adoption of an “elegant” lifestyle: “If California is going to have 50 million people, they’re not going to live the same way native people lived, much less the way people do today.. You have to find a more elegant way of relating to material things”.
Governor Jerry Brown is Organized Crime: A Fascist Environmentalist Who Works for the Queen and the Oil Companies by Patrick Ruckert June 11, 2015 http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org/ https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate The long-standing, but seldom acknowledged, sponsorship of the environmentalist movement by Britain's Royal Family and the oil companies has no better representative than California Governor Jerry Brown. Brown's wrecking of California by his mass murderous policy of “only conservation and no development of new water supplies,” during the worst drought in the state's history, combined with the lawsuit against him filed on June 3, charging him with a criminal conspiracy in league with the oil companies, under the Federal RICO statutes, provides the pathway to his removal. As reported by EIRNS on June 8, 2015: A Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) lawsuit was filed June 3 against Gov. Jerry Brown for approving permits to inject contaminated water into the ground, a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the website lawyersandsettlements.com reports. The suit contends that Brown's office ordered the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) to approve the permits.
The suit was filed by Mike Hopkins, whose 2,232-tree cherry orchard northwest Bakersfield died in 2012. Hopkins had the water tested by a reputable lab; the results showed that its chloride levels exceeded those allowed by the EPA. Chloride comes either from chemicals used for de-icing roads or from hydraulic fracking. There are no icy roads in Bakersfield.
The RICO lawsuit claims that the defendants began to conspire in 2010. Brown in November 2011, fired DOGGR's Elena Miller, his top oil industry regulator, because she insisted on engineering and geologic studies before issuing permits for wastewater injection wells. Avoiding the costs of such studies and avoiding in turn more expensive disposal methods would mean big savings for the oil industry. Miller also required testing at drilling sites to prove that waste would be contained. The governor replaced Miller with Timothy Kustic, who said the division would develop a more flexible approach to the permitting process, relying on historical records from work sites rather than new testing, according to a report from the California Department of Conservation. As a result, permit approvals went from the typical 50 permits a year to 1,575 permits in 2012 alone, noted attorney Rex Parris. Plaintiff Hopkins said, ``We discovered last summer that Occidental and Chevron Oil companies were directly injecting contaminated water into the aquifer.'' According to the lawsuit, the oil companies were injecting contaminated water into areas between 300 to 800 feet below ground, which is directly at the levels from which many farmers draw water from the aquifers. The lawsuit, case number 2:2015cv04149, is seeking damages in the tens of millions, which under the RICO statute could be tripled if the plaintiff prevails in Los Angeles federal court. The Courthouse News Service report of June 5, 2015, “Farmers Say Oil Firms & Governor Brown Colluded to Pollute Aquifer, by Matt Reynolds, provides more from the filing of the lawsuit, demonstrating the criminal intent of Brown and his Brownshirts: “Brown and other officials "suppressed research, destroyed documents, and refused to provide all information requested" to conceal evidence of permitting for injection wells, the group claims. “This deprived farmers of "fresh water, fair opportunities to earn an income, and honest government services," the lawsuit states. “Claiming that San Joaquin Valley farms provide 25 percent of all table food in the U.S.,' the groups say the valley has two precious underground resources: oil and water. And that oil production is threatening the water on which agriculture depends. “Parris called the lawsuit a 'landmark' RICO case and said it would have 'far-reaching implications.'"
Mike Hopkins,’ the lead plaintiff in the suit, and whose cherry orchard in northwest Bakersfield died in 2012, is represented by George Martin. Martin is quoted by kget.com Nexstar Broadcasting on June 3:
“Hopkins’ attorneys say Governor Jerry Brown killed those cherry trees. “I think he’s a criminal, That’s what I think,” said George Martin, plaintiff’s attorney.”
“They’re breaking the law, and it’s health and safety,” said Martin. “They could destroy the entire aquifer for Kern County, west Bakersfield at some point if it doesn’t stop.”
As a colleague quipped today, “While George Washington said he could not tell a lie, and admitted that he chopped down that cherry tree, Jerry Brown will lie and lie and never admit that he killed that cherry orchard.
On June 8, allgov.com reported that the “State Department of Conservation Director Quits Days after Oil-Drilling RICO Suit Is Filed.”
The Director, Mark Nechodom, resigned with no reasons given on June 5. He was the direct supervisor of the Timothy Kustic, head of the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), who is named in the lawsuit, and who was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown. It was Kustic who opened the door for the oil companies to continue and expand their pumping of wastewater into the state’s aquifers.
California's oil and gas industry uses more than 2 million gallons of fresh water a day to produce oil through fracking, acidizing, and steam injections, according to environmental estimates. In 2014, California oil producers used nearly 70 million gallons of water on fracking alone.
The lawsuit says “the conspiracy” dates back to 2010 when Jerry Brown fired his top oil industry regulator Elena Miller. Her replacement, Kustic, the suit says, ramped up the processing of permits for wastewater injection wells without engineering and geologic studies to guarantee groundwater would be protected.
Like Kustic, Nechodom was appointed by Brown in 2011, though for some reason not confirmed by the State Senate until January, 2013, after he (Brown) dismissed the Acting Director Derek Chernow, who was giving the oil companies a hard time on fracking. Brown, also in 2011, fired Elena Miller, his top oil industry regulator, because she insisted on engineering and geologic studies before issuing permits for wastewater injection wells.
Last year Nechodom and Kustic admitted that drillers had not only injected waste water into the aquifers, but found that after surveying 50,000 injection wells, the regulators determined that up to 2,500 might be pumping wastewater without permits or with permits they shouldn’t have. Twenty-three of the worst wells were immediately shut down to cover their asses, and they set up a review schedule that would not be completed for two years.
Nechodom virtually admitted his guilt to lawmakers in a hearing in March of this year, saying: “We all fell down on the job.”
Another suit was filed in May by the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity after the state admitted that it missed the April 30 deadline for identifying what oil companies do with the billions of gallons of water they pump out of and into the ground. DOGGR reported that it could not file the required report because of “unforeseeable personnel and technical challenges.”
Senator Fran Pavley, the author of legislation requiring the report, told the Los Angeles Times the agency didn’t hint at a problem until the deadline passed. “The department’s failure to comply with the law is another example of poor management and lax regulation of the oil and gas industry that has implications for California’s economy and the public health,” she said.
Now it is June, 2015, more than eight months after the first press reports on this outrageous practice by the Brown Administration. On October 9, 2014 Reuters reported:
“…the California State Water Resources Board found that at least nine of the 11 hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wastewater injection sites that were shut down in July upon suspicion of contamination were in fact riddled with toxic fluids used to unleash energy reserves deep underground.
“Despite these damning findings, the extent of wastewater pollution is still undetermined, as the Central Valley Water Board has thus far only tested eight water wells of the more than 100 in the area, according to the documents. Half of those tested came up positive for containing an excessive amount of toxic chemicals.
“A study by the California State Water Resource Board has found that at least nine of the 11 hydrolic fracturing wastewater injection sites that were shut down in July upon suspicion of contamination of ground water, were in fact guilty as suspected. As much as three billion gallons of fracking wastewater was injected into drinking-water and farm-irrigation aquifers, the state found. The state suspects 19 more sites, which are being investigated now. Well testing for contamination in the area of the fracking site is now ongoing.”
And in November, as headlined by NBC-Bay Area on November 14, 2014, “California Dept. of Conservation Deputy Director admits that errors were made:”
California’s Department of Conservation’s Chief Deputy Director, Jason Marshall, told NBC Bay Area, “In multiple different places of the permitting process an error could have been made.”
“There have been past issues where permits were issued to operators that they shouldn’t be injecting into those zones and so we’re fixing that,” Marshall added.
Marshall said that often times, oil and gas companies simply re-inject that waste water back deep underground where the oil extraction took place. But other times, Marshall said, the waste water is re-injected into aquifers closer to the surface. Those injections are supposed to go into aquifers that the EPA calls “exempt”—in other words, not clean enough for humans to drink or use.
For the EPA, “non-exempt” aquifers are underground bodies of water that are “containing high quality water” that can be used by humans to drink, water animals or irrigate crops.
In its reply to the EPA, California’s Water Resources Control Board said its “staff identified 108 water supply wells located within a one-mile radius of seven…injection wells” and that The Central Valley Water Board conducted sampling of “eight water supply wells in the vicinity of some of these… wells.”
According to state records, as many as 40 water supply wells, including domestic drinking wells, are located within one mile of a single well that’s been injecting into non-exempt aquifers.
That well is located in an area with several homes nearby, right in the middle of a citrus grove southeast of Bakersfield.
State records show waste water from several sources, including from the oil and gas industry, has gone into the aquifer below where 60 different water supply wells are located within a one mile radius.
Whoops! The crime revealed goes back even further, back to last summer. Here is an excerpt from a March 11, 2015 article from the Los Angeles Times, titled: “Agencies admit failing to protect water sources from fuel pollution.”
“Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources officials admitted last summer that for years they inadvertently allowed oil companies to inject wastewater — from fracking and other oil production operations — into hundreds of disposal wells in protected aquifers, a violation of federal law. Disclosures by oil drillers show high levels of benzene, a carcinogen, in the water that comes out of the ground with oil. Benzene is naturally occurring but extremely dangerous.
“So far, the state has shut down 23 of the hundreds of injection wells that are in aquifers not approved for waste injection.” (emphasis added)
Brown and the Oil Companies
So, is Jerry Brown the wonderful environmentalist he claims to be? Not that fascist. For him, his environmentalist face reflects both his usual opportunism that has characterized his career, but more importantly his commitment to the Malthusian genocidal policy of population reduction. His incessant insistence that the current drought is the new normal and people must get used to it and conserve, while ignoring or sabotaging the real solutions that have been on the table for decades, like nuclear-powered desalination, has no other motivation than to depopulate the state.
Today, as Brown leads the nation in a march to a zero carbon emission regime while destroying the state of California, it is ironic to recall that his environmental credentials were first earned in 1975, during his first term as Governor, when he repealed the oil depletion allowance and attacked the oil companies, to the mindless cheers of the emerging environmentalist movement.
That was in 1975, but what is his relationship to the oil companies today?
On September 20, 2013, Governor Brown signed into law the state’s first law regulating fracking and related practices, which went into affect in January, 2014. The law requires oil companies to obtain permits for fracking as well as acidizing, the use of hydrofluoric acid and other chemicals. It also requires that companies notify neighbors of the chemicals used, as well as groundwater and air quality monitoring and an independent scientific study. But, it made the review of the fracking permits optional and stopped a moratorium on fracking for 15 months. Environmentalist organizations opposed the law, fearing it was a deception that would allow the oil companies too much leeway.
As the report above demonstrates, for a change, the environmentalists were right. That should have surprised no one. The Counterpunch article on September 24, 2014, “Big Oil’s Favorite Governor: Jerry Brown,” reports that Brown had received $2,014,570.22 from oil companies since 2006, when he ran for Attorney General. In 2014, four oil companies gave $161,000 for Governor Brown’s re-election campaign, and that was with two more months to give more before the election. It does not stop there. Oil companies gave $355,000 to Brown’s two Oakland charter schools.
When Brown fired and replaced the regulators of the oil industry in October, 2011, the early period of the conspiracy charged in the RICO suit, Occidental Petroleum’s stock shot up by $12.00 overnight, increasing Oxy’s “market value” by about $8 billion.
All of the above is not to just expose the hypocrite, liar and criminal Jerry Brown, but should remind us all that the environmentalist movement’s origins began with the founding of the World Wildlife Fund (now called the Worldwide Fund for Nature) by acknowledged Nazis Prince Philip of Britain and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. All of the early funding to kick off the environmentalist movement in the early 1970s came from the Royal Corporations, especially the oil companies.
Recommended reading on fracking:
“Fracking: The Economics of Extinction”
Executive Intelligence Review March 21, 2014
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2014/eirv41n12-20140321/78-80_4112.pdf
At a time when half the United States is in drought, when 80% of the national food crop is threatened, and communities are faced with the prospect of turning on the faucet to see no water run, whatever temporary economic relief hydraulic-fractured natural gas is bringing to communities, the net effect of this boom is criminal, and coheres with the colonial free-trade policies that have brought us the drought and gutted our infrastructure. This is why Lyndon LaRouche and LaRouchePAC have been so adamant that we shut down the fracking boom. In fact, as you will see, the industry would not even exist, or would exist in a very different form, if the progress of nuclear power had not been halted many decades ago.
Notes:
(1) In 1970, as a member of the Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Brown attempted to prove he was not a liberal and proposed that demonstrating students should be dealt with by “’an airborne campus strike force to curb student violence.’ that would employ ‘no-nonsense tactics’ against the hated student disrupters.” Brown at the time attempted to out Nixon Nixon on “law and order.” Source: “Trailblazer– A Biography of Jerry Brown,” by Chuck McFadden, page 42.