California Oil Drilling Companies Violate State Regulations
I was floored to learn that multiple gas and oil drilling companies in California have violated state regulations an average of 127 times each year since 2015! These violations have encompassed everything from missing paperwork to severe infrastructure corrosion, yet no penalties were ever levied. What the heck is going on here?
How the California Gas & Oil Drilling Companies are Getting Away with It
It appears that the state agency responsible for overseeing such regulations – the California Department of Conservation – has been turning a blind eye to these issues. Many years have passed without any record of the testing that is required to be performed by the state’s gas and oil drilling companies every five years.
The agency has been so laissez-faire regarding its enforcement responsibilities, that many stakeholders have accused the agency of being too cozy with industry players. The agency seems to be particularly cozy with the worst violator – California Resources Corp., whose two subsidiaries are responsible for a whopping 76% of the violations over the past three years!
How Improper Oil Drilling Affects Emergency Preparedness
Obviously, the biggest negative consequence of all these violations is the environmental impact. Corroded oil pipes will eventually leak or burst, and when this happens it requires a huge amount of effort to clean up, which in turn requires heavy usage of gas and oil fueled machines! In addition, methane – a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide – often bubbles up from oil slicks and seeps into the atmosphere.
Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of volatile weather over the past few decades, a trend that will surely continue into the foreseeable future, and this correlates with an increase in the number and duration of service outages. Therefore, anything that could potentially worsen global warming – such as improper gas and oil drilling – clearly makes our jobs as emergency planners more difficult.
Hopefully the California Department of Conservation will wise up and do what needs to be done, and start hitting these violators hard where it hurts the most – in the wallet.
