Learn more about Frack Free Butte County at www.frackfreebuttecounty.

org


To frack or not to frack, that was the question. And it still is. After a more than two-hour meeting
on the subject Tuesday (July 29), the Butte County Board of Supervisors voted to not place an
initiative on the November general election ballot that would ban hydraulic fracturingthe
extraction of natural gas and oil via the application of high-pressure, chemically treated water to
break underground shale layers and set the sought-after commodities free.

The initiative did not get the nod, even though it had enough valid voter signatures to qualify.
Instead, the board voted to call for a 30-day study by county staff to see if the initiative might
result in litigation, harm property values, negatively impact existing businesses or not outlaw
some other nefarious use of underground wells. There is also some question as to how the
ordinance will conform with the recently passed state law regulating fracking.

County Counsel Bruce Alpert told the board he found the ordinance as drafted troublesome.

It is not my purview to tell you how to vote, he said, but I see trouble ahead with how it was
drafted.

Back in April, the board voted to have county counsel look into drawing up an ordinance to ban
fracking. Alpert said that his ofce had studied similar laws proposed in other counties including
Santa Barbara, which has an 18-page ordinance Alpert said has much more detail than the
Butte County ballot initiative.

Its important for me to give you this information, he said. This does not mean Im pro or con
[on fracking].

The board had three choices: Adopt the ordinance without making changes; submit it to the
voters at the next statewide election; or study it for 30 days to look for potential problems. That
30-day period excludes it from the Nov. 4 election because state law says the next election must
take place more than 88 days after the boards decision. (In other words, the 30-day study and a
board decision would have to be completed by Aug. 8, which is just a week away.)

County Clerk-Recorder Candace Grubbs told the board that her staff had stayed in the ofce
until 7 p.m. the night before verifying the signatures, of which 7,605 valid onesor 10 percent of
the number of registered voters in the Butte County 2010 General Electionwere needed. They
counted 7,975.

The next eligible election for the ordinance is June 2016, and barring the supervisors decision
to adopt it on their own, that is when it will take place.

All of this doesnt come without some controversy. The signatures for the initiative were handed
in on June 5, but on June 16 Grubbs told the bans backers that the petition was invalid because
it didnt meet certain formatting requirements. Those imperfections were brought to her attention
by a Sacramento law rm representing a pro-fracking organization called Californians for a
Safe, Secure Energy Future. The matter went to court on July 23, and Butte County Superior
Court Judge Robert Glusman ruled the initiative was legal and that the clerks ofce should
move ahead with it.

More than 30 members of the audience addressed the board Tuesday, with about half urging
that the matter be placed on the ballot as a way to protect the countys underground water
supply and the other half calling for the 30-day study and warning of property rights intrusions,
loss of jobs and a drop in property values.



A man named John Busch, a Biggs councilman who said he was not speaking as an elected
ofcial, said he didnt know enough about fracking to comment, but believes in going forward
with things that might supply us with cheaper energy.

He said he thought the board had been bombarded endlessly by the anti-frackers and called
for the 30 days of study.

The next speaker was James Smith, a walnut grower and general contractor who said he
worked in Texas oil elds in 1980 and 1981, participating in both drilling and fracking.

Its a normal procedure, he said. Every well in Texas has been fracked. Why all this hysteria
now?

A woman named Jenny Smith said there is no fracking currently going on in Butte County and
questioned the need for the ordinance. She also asked if she would be reimbursed should the
government takes away her property rights.

Dave Garcia, a spokesman for the fracking ban, told the board it was needed to protect the
countys water supply and that studies show the practice leads to earthquakes. He also said a
facility in south Butte County called the Wild Goose Storage Inc. has a wastewater injection
well. The project is an underground natural gas storage facility that works with Pacic Gas &
Electric.

Brian Hamman, who said he is Butte County-born and reared, is an attorney for the company
and denied the accusations. He said the facility does not practice fracking and is simply a
storage facility for natural gas. He said it does use gravel to free up underground gas reserves
and lter the associated sand from rising with the gas, but does not use chemicals. Supervisor
Doug Teeter also noted that Wild Goose was one of the countys top property-tax payees. He
said if the ban precluded Wild Goose from operating and it up and moved, the county would
take a signicant hit in property taxes revenue.

John Scott, a member of the Butte County Water Commission, read a report that said on July 7
state ofcials ordered the shutdown of 11 oil and gas waste injection sites and a review of more
than 100 others in the states drought-wracked Central Valley out of fear that companies may
have been pumping fracking uids and other toxic waste into drinking aquifers there.

Scott told the board that banning fracking is not a rush to judgment.

Joni Stellar, organizer of Frack Free Butte County, noted that the court case had delayed the
process and that outside interests were trying to derail the effort.

A 30-day study would make no difference, she said. Weve already given you the information.
Allow the voters to look into it.

Stellar said she could rebut every opposing view voiced at the meeting and that the study will
not uncover any information that is not already known.

In the end, the board voted 4-1 to complete the study, with Supervisor Maureen Kirk as the lone
dissenter. She said she just wanted to see the matter go to the voters.

County counsel will continue to work on an ordinance as the board instructed back in April.
Chief Administrative Ofcer Paul Hahn said staff will reach out to Chico State professors to try to
gain nonpartisan experts to provide unbiased information on fracking.