BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF LOST WATER: FRACKING AND HECA

By Ruth Musser-Lopez

The proposed HECA project and FRACKING are corporate water heists. HECA will use 6.6 million gallons of water daily that could be used for farming in the central valley. Hydraulic fracking uses 160,000 gallons per job, but "job" is not defined. Water becomes a toxic sludge and "trade secrets" keep the public from knowing what's in it. Bore holes provide avenues for oozing into drinking water aquifers.

Months have passed since a legal notice was published by the San Joaquin Valley Air District on Feb 13, 2013 in this paper with regard to yet another application, for a "send it down to Kern" dirty air credit permit--HECA they call it. SCS Energy of Concord, Massachusetts is the owner. See HECAinfo.com

Pitched as a "job creator," it is an experimental scheme to gasify (a new word for burn) a newer, shinier version of 1.5 million tons of New Mexico coal annually to produce "hydrogen energy" near Tupman, California. Much of the energy produced would be used to manufacture chemical fertilizer with little net energy for the grid. Local jobs promised are 200, amounting to less than many retail stores but would threaten the loss of farming related jobs.

The so-called "clean coal" element of the project sounds healthy but in reality burning it would release significant toxic pollutants into the air and the operation would take 6.6 million gallons every day of the slightly brackish water currently being used on almonds and pistachios in the area.

The use of the term "hydrogen energy" also gives the impression of "clean" but alarmingly, the legal notice is ominous proof of the intent to add significant pollution to our lovely Kern County air, already identified by the American Lung Association as the worst in the nation.

Particulate emissions alone cause damage to lungs and arteries from the inside out--this project will emit huge poundages of particulates.

But the worst part of it has to do with why the "experimental" project is being brought here in the first place.

The corporate promise of loosely regulated out-of-state companies, once again, to shove waste into the "extreme downward" where it "will stay," they say, in "deep oil wells." For HECA the CO2 waste stream to be sequestered is enormous amounting to 2,600,000 more TONS per year.

CO2, carbon dioxide is the bad stuff that makes your body burp, your bones porous and ("spoiler alert") in large quantities, causes global warming. With the addition of CO2, a well filled with oily gas and other hazardous chemicals previously injected there could potentially contract "environmental gastroenteritis" ending with a belch of the entire hazardous mess erupting like a toxic volcano.

It has been reported that CO2 has eaten through old, capped wells and spewed CO2,methane, brine, oil, and drilling muds in Mississippi. One vented for over a month. In another case, gas was bubbling up in a near by water well. For California, earthquakes causing releases should also be considered.

While an oil company with a deep well has yet to accept the liability of sequestering the CO2, it's rumored that Occidental Oil, currently reorganizing "out-of-state" thus shedding its California liabilities, is preparing a new corporate instrument to take on the risk.

Sunny California is fortunate to have lots of truly clean energy solutions: solar, wave, wind. geothermal, hydroelectric. Why, with all of its potential, does this district insist on going backward to coal from out-of-state? Does it have anything to do with polluter corporation contributions?

My own run for office is an extension of my 27-year grass roots campaign to stop desert water heists on the east side of Senate District 16, such as a recent pump and pipe plans which would turn the rare and amazingly rich environment of the East Mojave Desert into a sandy Sahara. Eliminating unnecessary projects that waste massive amounts of water would increase availability and thus reduce the incentive to heist desert water.

That you may have a voice in this disastrous project, please watch the California Energy Commission (CEC) http://www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases/hydrogen_energy/ as to when it will hold its hearing.

Respectfully submitted,

Ruth Musser-Lopez

ANOTHER BONE TO PICK: Words from a Buttonwillow Farmer July 2014

HECA project. This should include interstate emissions from hauling, loading and offloading from the source point. (the mine) These are emissions that would not be generated if the HECA permit were denied.

If the calculations to arrive at a net benefit include benefits such as power sent to the grid and consumed outside of Buttonwillow area, the emissions generated outside of Buttonwillow area should also be included in the calculation. I believe currently its calculated only from Wasco. Also included should be the loss of CO2 sequestration resulting from crops not grown from the 7500 acre feet of water diverted from farms and consumed by HECA. Just a thought...

Bryan Bone Buttonwillow Farmer