Över stora delar av Kalifornien, fossilbränsleföretag lämnar tusentals olje- och gaskällor urkopplade och inaktiva, potentiellt hotar hälsan för människor som bor i närheten och ger skattebetalarna en mångmiljardsedel för miljösaneringen.

Från Kern County till Los Angeles, företag har inte avsatt i närheten av tillräckligt med pengar för att säkerställa att dessa borrplatser städas upp och görs säkra för framtida generationer, enligt en månadslång dataanalys och utredning av Los Angeles Times och Center for Public Integrity.

Särskilt oroande är cirka 35, 000 brunnar som sitter sysslolösa, med produktionsstopp, hälften av dem i mer än ett decennium. Även om Kalifornien nyligen skärpte sina regler för att säkerställa att fler saneringsmedel finns tillgängliga, dessa åtgärder går inte tillräckligt långt, enligt en färsk statlig rapport och analysen Times/Public Integrity.

Kaliforniens oljeindustri är på tillbakagång, vilket ökar chanserna att företag går i konkurs. Det kan i sin tur lämna staten kostnaderna för att städa upp sina borrplatser, som om de lämnas oåterkalleliga kan förorena vattenförsörjning och ångor in i människors hem.

Under federala, statliga och lokala lagar, fossilbränsleföretag måste lägga ut pengar, kallade obligationer, för att säkerställa att brunnar slutligen pluggas och saneras. Dessa avsatta medel är ett svar på oljeindustrins historia i USA, där tusentals företag gick i konkurs utan att ha tillräckligt med finansiella reserver för att betala för sanering.

Branschrepresentanter säger att de gör sitt för att betala för städning i Kalifornien, men deras obligationer är bedrövligt otillräckliga för att klara de förväntade kostnaderna. Times/Public Integrity -undersökningen visade att obligationer som skickades till staten av Kaliforniens sju största borrmaskiner, som står för mer än 75 % av olje- och gaskällorna, uppgår till cirka 230 USD, i genomsnitt, för varje brunn måste de avvecklas. Andra obligationer som innehas av federala och lokala tillsynsmyndigheter höjer inte dessa belopp nämnvärt.

Däremot, den genomsnittliga kostnaden per brunn för att täcka brunnar och demontera tillhörande ytinfrastruktur i Kalifornien är mellan $40, 000 och 152 USD, 000, beroende på om en brunn ligger på landsbygden eller i tätort, enligt en studie som släpptes i januari av California Council on Science and Technology.

Resultatet är ett gäspande gap mellan vad branschen har tillhandahållit och vad som i slutändan kommer att behövas. Företag har gett staten endast 110 miljoner dollar för att städa upp statens olje- och gaskällor på land, rådet fann. I själva verket, det kan kosta ungefär 6 miljarder dollar för den saneringen, enligt en Times/Public Integrity-analys av statliga data som lämnats till vetenskaps- och teknikrådet.

Avveckling av oljekällor och plattformar till havs, som inte ingår i dessa siffror, kommer att kosta flera miljarder dollar.

"Dessa skulder gömmer sig i klarsynt, sa Clark Williams-Derry, en energifinansieringsanalytiker vid Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. "De är enorma, men på något sätt har de blivit osynliga för oss."

En nyckelfråga är om Kaliforniens oljeindustri – som en gång var en av de tre främsta amerikanska producenterna – har resurser och uthållighet för att betala för framtida sanering.

Branschrepresentanter hävdar att de kommer att vara i staten så länge som kalifornier konsumerar fossila bränslen. "Det finns betydande projekt som föreslås, sa Rock Zierman, verkställande direktör för California Independent Petroleum Assn., och tillägger att statens oljeindustri stöder ungefär 18, 000 jobb.

Men Kaliforniens oljeproduktion har minskat med nästan 60 % från sin topp 1985, delvis för att statens insättningar av tungt råolja inte kan konkurrera i en värld som föredrar billigare naturgas.

Eftersom staten utvinner mindre olja, fler och fler brunnar står oanvända.

Om produktionen fortsätter att sjunka, fler samhällen kan vara kvar i Arvins situation, en till stor del latino stad med 20 000 i Kern County som är prickade av borrplatser. Många av de brunnarna står stilla eller producerar lite.

Tills sådana brunnar är igensatta, de kan släppa ut giftiga utsläpp och brandfarliga gaser från både sina höljen och rören som ansluter till dem. Det vet Elvia Garcia alltför väl.

Under 2014, lågor sköt ut ur vägguttag i Garcias hem. Hennes gravida dotter drabbades av plötsliga blackouts. Statliga inspektörer borrade testhål i gräsmattor och fann explosiva nivåer av gas som läckte från ett rör som servar brunnar i slutet av kvarteret.

De gav invånarna en timme på sig att evakuera. Det var nio månader innan Garcias familj fick återvända.

"Vi kände stark lukt av något som ruttnade, och den lukten kom från uttagen, " sa hon på spanska. "Vi trodde att det var något mellan väggarna som hade dött."

Mer än 350, 000 kalifornier bor inom 600 fot från urkopplade brunnar, en Times/Public Integrity-analys av funna folkräkningsdata. Det är det avstånd på vilket människor utsätts för försämrad luftkvalitet, enligt en rapport från 2019 från kontoret som övervakar olja och gas i Los Angeles.

Oljekällor är kända för att avge troliga cancerframkallande ämnen inklusive bensen och formaldehyd. Utan tak, dessa brunnar släpper också ut en potent växthusgas, metan, som hjälper till att driva på klimatförändringarna.

Times/Public Integrity-utredningen väcker frågor om effekterna av dessa pågående utsläpp om fler av statens lediga brunnar är öde utan tillräckligt med pengar för att städa upp dem.

Det har länge varit branschpraxis att låta brunnar gå tillfälligt overksamma – i underhållssyfte, till exempel, eller när råvarupriserna är låga. Men enligt data som underhålls av California Geologic Energy Management Division, eller CalGEM, myndigheten som reglerar olje- och gasproducenter, the oil industry since its peak-production days has doubled the instances in which it idles wells for at least two years at a time.

Most cases of oil and gas wells going idle in California are short-term. But once a well has been dormant for just 10 months, there's a 50-50 chance it will never produce again, a Times/Public Integrity analysis of 40 years of state data found. By the time federal regulators begin raising concern—at five years of inactivity—the chance that a well is ever active again falls to 1 in 4.

Industry critics say lax state regulations are allowing oil companies to walk away from wells and the liability they represent.

"All they want to do is rape the land and leave, " said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, a Santa Barbara Democrat deeply involved in attempts to regulate the oil and gas industry. "They are taking the resources of California, monetizing them and leaving us with the mess."

Zierman, of the California Independent Petroleum Assn., rejected such claims, arguing that the use of cleanup bonds and fees on both idling and production means companies bear their share of costs.

Such bonds act like a security deposit on an apartment, with the money returned if a company meets its cleanup obligations and kept by the state if it does not. If a company goes out of business without adequate bonds, the state is on the hook for the difference or, alternately, could leave the site contaminated.

Zierman also disputed the idea that the state's industry has no future. Problemet, han sa, is that state and local governments are blocking proposed projects. "Part of it is just a concerted effort to stop oil in California, " han sa.

För deras del, state regulators say they're operating under the assumption that California oil and gas is on the way out.

The role of CalGEM "is really to manage that decline, " said Jason Marshall, the Department of Conservation's chief deputy director and until late 2019 the acting head of its oil and gas division. "To make sure that when the last barrel of oil gets produced, that there are resources available so the well that produced it and all the other wells can be plugged."

State regulators say they have new tools in place to protect taxpayers and the environment.

I oktober, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that gave California more authority to limit the financial liability shouldered by taxpayers. It also mandated companies conduct more thorough reporting of emissions and liability. En månad senare, Newsom announced the state would study the possibility of a no-drilling buffer zone around communities.

Last April, CalGEM enacted regulations targeting idle wells. Those included increased fees on idle wells to create an incentive for producers to plug them. CalGEM, previously called the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, collected $4.3 million in such fees in 2018.

Though state officials say these new regulations will better protect the state from liability, they still leave California exposed, säger experter.

"The amount of the bonds currently on file is really small compared to the magnitude of the plugging obligations, " said Judson Boomhower, an environmental economist and assistant professor at UC San Diego who was the lead author of the California Council on Science and Technology report.

California's ability to handle the shrinking size of the industry could soon be tested. One of the state's largest producers, California Resources Corp., is responsible for the third-most idle wells of any company in the state and faces cleanup costs that far outstrip its total market value. CRC and its subsidiaries operate more than 17, 000 unplugged wells, either idle or active, including four artificial islands built to tap offshore reserves.

If CRC were to fold, other companies would probably buy some of those wells, but many could become the state's problem.

More than 7, 600 wells on pause

On many days, there's no horizon in western Kern County. Dust and pollution thrown up by the area's twin economic engines, fossil fuel extraction and large-scale agriculture, blend the hazy sky with land that's been sculpted into miles of straight-lined farms and oil fields hosting three-quarters of the state's oil and gas wells.

In this part of the county, only a chain-link fence and 1, 000 feet of dusty ground separate the fewer than 200 people living in the mobile homes and modest houses of Tupman from the 75-square-mile Elk Hills Field. This oil patch is so contaminated that a flock of sheep, 500 animals by one count, died here in 1960 when they drank from a pool of water tainted with arsenic, historically used to prevent corrosion in wells.

"Here's a nice place to come out and eat your lunch, " Rosanna Esparza, a gerontologist and Bakersfield-based community activist, said sarcastically during a September visit to the eerily quiet Tupman. She gestured toward two gray picnic tables outside Elk Hills Elementary School, which sits on the oil field's border.

Elk Hills is the largest gas-producing field in the state and the prize of California Resources Corp.'s portfolio. But this 109-year-old field is home to nearly 1, 400 of the more than 7, 600 CRC wells that were sitting idle statewide as of mid-January, according to CalGEM data examined by The Times and Public Integrity. The analysis of the most recent idle well inventory, published in September, found that CRC's idle wells haven't produced oil or gas, i genomsnitt, for nearly 14 years.

This field is riddled with contaminants left behind by fossil fuel extraction. The U.S. Navy previously managed Elk Hills, and the federal government is paying the state to remediate 131 areas of concern here that contain arsenic, metals such as chromium and lead, and carcinogenic chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

"This is an example of what's going to happen in the foreseeable future when other huge oil fields start to lose their glitter, " Esparza said. "This is what happens when the oil industry starts to slip."

CRC was born in 2014 when Occidental Petroleum Corp. packaged its California assets and spun them off as a new company, shedding millions of dollars in environmental liability for Occidental in the process.

CRC has since faced harsh market forces. Oil production at the wells now owned by the company is down more than 70% since the 1980s. Gas is down more than 50%. CRC's shares had lost more than four-fifths of their value as of mid-January. The company's cash generated after expenses—a key financial measure known as net free cash flow—is several hundred million dollars in the red since splitting from Occidental, according to an analysis of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings compiled by the energy analyst Williams-Derry, who has tracked CRC.

And CRC has nearly $5 billion worth of debt that's maturing by the end of 2022. Its credit rating is CCC+, which Standard &Poor's describes as "currently vulnerable" and just steps above default.

"The significant risk of this company is avoiding bankruptcy, " said Paul Sankey, an oil and gas analyst and managing director with financial firm Mizuho.

On top of all this, CRC will eventually need to address its environmental liabilities. The company's most recent SEC filing lists $511 million in future cleanup costs called "asset retirement obligations."

After examining the state's historical costs, The Times and Public Integrity found it could cost more than $1 billion to plug all the wells CRC operates.

In emailed responses, CRC spokeswoman Margita Thompson said the company delivered strong third-quarter 2019 results, with record free cash flow, some debt repayment and stable production. She also said the $1-billion figure is misleading because the state would shoulder the responsibility only if CRC were unable to pay, which she indicated would not be necessary because the company expects to make far more money off its reserves than it needs to address those liabilities. And she contended that the company can plug its own wells at a lower cost than if the state were to take over.

CRC across all its subsidiaries has more than $80 million in cleanup bonds outstanding with various agencies, satisfying its obligations, sa Thompson.

She said the company takes its oil well "plugging and abandonment duties seriously, " adding that idle wells are an important part of the company's inventory because they can eventually be used again to access oil and gas formations.

"Prematurely closing wells would worsen Californians' dependence on imports from places like Saudi Arabia, sa Thompson, who earlier served as press secretary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Critics say CRC's approach to its aging wells raises questions about its long-term commitment to remediation.

Under California law, operators can either pay fees or agree to plug long-idled wells. Of the 10 operators with the most long-idled wells in the state, the only ones that opted for fees instead of cleanup were two CRC subsidiaries, according to data obtained via public records requests.

Holding off on decommissioning minimizes short-term costs, but it comes with uncertain consequences for California if CRC gets into deeper financial difficulties.

"A single bankruptcy among one of these large companies could potentially create a large number of orphan wells, " the recent California Council on Science and Technology report said, specifically mentioning CRC.

Williams-Derry compared CRC's situation to short-lived coal companies that took on high levels of liability in recent years as they spun off from major producers that were financially hurting. "Those were companies that to all appearances were designed to fail, " han sa.

Industry lobbies to limit cleanup obligations

People living near unplugged oil and gas wells face exposure to cancer-causing chemicals, and toxic residue brought up by drilling below Earth's surface can contaminate aquifers that could become future drinking water supplies.

Det här året, California lawmakers are considering a bill that would create a 2, 500-foot buffer separating wells from homes, skolor, hospitals and other public buildings.

According to a Times/Public Integrity analysis, more than 2 million Californians live within that distance of an unplugged oil or gas well, with Latino, black and low-income people living nearby at a slightly higher rate than the California population as a whole. Half of those 2 million people reside in Los Angeles.

A strict buffer requirement faces long odds in the Legislature. It's opposed by labor and oil industry groups, two of Sacramento's most well-funded lobbying forces.

2016, when lawmakers were considering legislation that ultimately overhauled the management of idle wells, the Western States Petroleum Assn., a trade group representing oil and gas interests, reported spending $7 million to lobby on it and other bills. Over the last five years, the trade group pumped more than $41 million into lobbying in California, by far the most of any organization in the state.

Das Williams, now a Santa Barbara County supervisor and formerly a Democratic member of the Legislature, sponsored the 2016 legislation after it became clear that decommissioning offshore oil infrastructure would be costly for the state. That law also increased state bonding, although not to the level its authors had hoped. Williams said that industry groups occupied an opposing seat at the bargaining table and that the bill's language was "a product of haggling."

The resulting changes to how the state manages idle wells have produced some progress on cleanup, according to a study CalGEM released in November. Companies plugged 988 long-term idle wells in 2018, and nine operators decommissioned more wells than the statute required.

"It's doing what we wanted it to do, " said Marshall, with the Department of Conservation.

But companies continue to put off more expensive cleanup jobs in urban areas such as Los Angeles, instead focusing on rural wells that are easier to decommission, mainly in Kern County. That finding is based on data The Times and Public Integrity obtained for every well-plugging plan that operators submitted and CalGEM approved in 2019.

If these wells are left open, the state will need to step in.

Because the money that defunct companies had set aside for cleanup usually falls short, the state relies on fees on idle wells and production. By law, CalGEM isn't allowed to spend more than $3 million a year to plug orphan wells, a temporary increase that will drop back to $1 million after 2021. The agency has plugged more than 1, 350 such wells since 1977.

From Appalachia to the Mountain West, many other states are in a similar predicament, struggling to address cleanup of old oil wells. Utah acknowledged a funding shortfall in November, till exempel, and Colorado announced its cleanup would cost 14 times more than what companies set aside.

Boomhower, the California Council on Science and Technology bonding report's lead author, said oil companies often find it cheaper to forfeit an insufficient bond than to pay for cleanup and capping. "You do have to worry that some of these small and mid-sized operators don't have incentive to clean up, " han sa.

In Arvin, fumes remain near homes and schools

Five years ago, Elvia Garcia returned to her home in Arvin, which she said had been looted while she was gone. Sedan dess, her family has continued to suffer from lingering headaches brought on by occasional odors. State regulators fined the company responsible for the leak, Petro Capital Resources LLC. The company installed machines on homes in the neighborhood, including Garcia's, to remove gas—and vent it into backyards.

During a September visit to Arvin, various wells near Garcia's neighborhood hummed as they pulled up a trickle of hydrocarbons. The odor of mercaptan, the compound added to natural gas to give it its distinctive smell, hung in the air. At one site, oil stained a patch of dirt, the leak appearing to originate from another company's storage tank.

The largely disused wells here are part of a trend. At the industry's peak, about 2.5 times as many wells produced as sat idle statewide. That ratio has fallen to about 1.5 times as many active as idle wells, the Times/Public Integrity analysis found.

Francisco Gonzalez, who lives down the street from Garcia, moved to Arvin to enjoy a quiet retirement outside Los Angeles. He said his family still smells nauseating levels of gas at certain times, and he worries about the health of children attending the schools across the street from wells.

"What is the company going to do?" he asked in Spanish. "They are not going to do anything."

Jeff Williams, Petro Capital Resources' production manager, said there can't be leaks in homes, because the pipeline hasn't been used since 2014 and wells are pulling up only enough gas to relieve pressure buildup. He said the company has no near-term plans to plug and abandon the wells because it hopes to one day restart production there.

Two blocks away, next to Arvin High School, 25 unplugged wells owned by a company called Sunray Petroleum Inc. sit deserted, 40 years after some of them last operated. Pump jacks rise above fields of almond saplings like rusting scarecrows.

Sunray, which filed for bankruptcy in 2011 and has racked up numerous violations for unpaid fees and inadequate pollution monitoring, saw its production fall off a cliff in the late 1980s. The last of its wells went quiet in 2015.

A phone number listed for the company has been disconnected, and other attempts to reach Sunray proved futile. The company has posted a cleanup bond for its wells, but it is far less than what the law requires and what will ultimately be needed for cleanup.

In March 2017, CalGEM mailed a notice of violation to the Las Vegas-based company. In a certified letter, the division wrote that Sunray ignored requirements to test its long-idled wells, including those near Arvin High School, for indications of groundwater contamination. The agency said that failure to submit those tests could constitute a crime.

The post office sent the letter back to CalGEM with this stamp:"RETURN TO SENDER. UNCLAIMED. UNABLE TO FORWARD."

©2020 Los Angeles Times
Distribueras av Tribune Content Agency, LLC.