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By Tina Fisher Cunningham
The Forde Files 

Commissioners send 1,876-page oil permitting plan to supervisors

The Forde Files No 105

 


The Kern County Planning Commission has recommended approval of a 1,876-page Draft Environmental Report (EIR) aimed at streamlining the oil and gas drilling permitting process and improving communication between the people who own the surface of the land and those who own the mineral rights below. The EIR now goes to the Board of Supervisors for final approval.

“The state wanted the EIR approved,” Second District Supervisor Zack Scrivner said Wednesday in Tehachapi. “The EIR will be a statewide model.”

All oil and gas well drilling must be approved on the state level by the Department of Conservation and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR). The Kern County EIR, which covers 2.3 million acres of west Kern County (up to Arvin), provides a supplement to DOGGR in the form of a “ministerial permit” that functions like a building permit.

“We believe we have provided a pathway to resolve conflicts,” Planning and Community Development Director Lorelei Oviatt said.

The Commission’s 4-0 approval (Commissioner Melissa Poole absent) followed a four-hour special hearing on Mon., Oct. 5, 2015, at a packed Supervisors board room in Bakersfield.

The pro-active use of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) EIR process is groundbreaking, according to several speakers. The EIR can be used for CEQA compliance with state agencies.

Babcock said that Oviatt “set a precedent” for other counties.

Commissioner Xochitl Garcia said the EIR “puts everyone in the position of stepping up their game and accepting and be willing to be held to a higher standard.”

The EIR relies on the simple expedient of expecting private parties – the surface owners and the mineral rights holders -- to work out deals they can live with. Under the streamlined process, the parties have 120 days to thrash out issues related to drilling such as access, abandoned wells, location of wells, roads, storage, tanks, water drainage and more.

“We do not need to know the terms of the agreement,” Oviatt said in her report to the Commission.

In what is legally known as a “split estate,” (one party has surface rights and another has mineral rights), the mineral owner is known as the “dominant estate.”

Commissioner Chad Louie said the EIR creates balance.

“It does an excellent job in balancing the needs of the oil and gas industries with the rights of the surface estate,” Louie said. “And balanced with enhanced environmental protections.”

In the past, lack of communication between surface landowners and mineral rights holders has led to sometimes serious difficulties. Under the new process, all information about the drilling must be made available to the surface land owner.

“This project is providing the incentive for oil to get together with the surface estate to work out issues,” Louis said.

Absent an agreement, the parties may ask the court to decide.

Oviatt said there arre 43,000 existing active wells in Kern County. Eleven thousand are idle. Eighty percent of the oil produced in California is from Kern County.

“This is a wonderful step forward for the industry,” Commissioner Chris Babcock said. “Counties and cities need to put their hand out to business owners and welcome them.”

 
 

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