AGENDA 21 RADIO

by Red Smith

2.10.16: Recently California Governor Jerry Brown came under fire for the use of public funds to conduct a geological survey on his family property in Colusa County. The Governors office immediately and vehemently denied any wrong doing, claiming the Governor didn’t use any services not readily available to any other California resident. However former head of the State of California Oil, Gas and Geothermal (Department of Conservation) Steve Bohlen denied Californians would have similar access as the Governor, in response well over 250 Californians requested identical surveys of their personal property, to date zero of those requests have been acknowledged. Furthermore Jennie Catalano, a mapping specialist for the California Department of Conservation, emerged stating she faced retaliation after complaining about being required to do personal work for Brown. Jennie Catalano has filed a whistleblower case over the incident.

Brown claims his request was to satisfy his interest in the history and geology of his family’s land, however many, especially those in the California Republican Party, claim the report focused primarily on oil and gas deposits. Republicans are calling for a full investigation. Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) stated “The governor’s actions appear to be a clear violation of well-known state law prohibiting the use of public resources for personal gain. There will need to be an investigation to ensure the facts are brought out.”

In conversation with the Governors office late last year, Gubernatorial staff stated that no shale oil or natural gas deposits were found to be present on the property. This statement is proving to be categorically false information and considering the source of the contrary evidence, a bald faced lie. There is in fact a large deposit of shale oil on the Rancho Venada property according to USGS mapping of shale deposits.

Governor Brown has continually denied the existence of oil or gas wells on the Rancho Venada property, however according to maps from the California Department of Conservation (see map top right) three wells do exist on the Governor’s property and have for decades. The first well (from top to bottom) is listed as Smith & Vickers Well#1 a plugged production gas well, API: 01100287. The second well is listed as E. & G. Products Well#1 an idle production gas well, API: 01100286 . Well 3 is listed as Mountain House Oil Company Well#5 an idle production Dry Gas Well, API: 01100288 .

Well information compiled from recorded documents of California State Mining Bureau Department of Petroleum & Gas and State of California Natural Resources Oil and Gas Division

Smith & Vickers Well#1 is reported to have been abandoned on May 12th, 1931. This well is reported to have drilled to a depth 1027? and never produced oil, however it did strike fresh water at a depth of 302? to 308? producing 8 barrels a minute of water. No oil sands were present. The hole was sealed with a 10? cement plug.

& G. Products Well#1 is reported abandoned May 20th, 1938. Apparently the oil derrick and pumping equipment burned and drilling never resumed. The well is reported to have been drilled to a depth of 148? where it began to produce a mixture of oil and saltwater amounting to roughly a half gallon of oil a minute. Shale oil, oil sands and blue shale were encountered prior to termination of operations. The hole is currently untapped and idle.

Mountain House Oil Company Well#5 is reported as abandoned on December 31st, 1931. The well was drilled to a depth of 1322? where it struck sand shell deposits and blue shale. A natural gas deposit “in commercial quantities” was discovered at a depth of 1042?. The hole is currently listed as capped with a small pipe and idle.

Regarding the E. & G. well and the Mountain House well 1930’s drilling technology would not have allowed for viable petroleum production from those sand and shale deposits, however due to new drilling techniques, namely “fracking”, those two wells now stand to be potentially, extremely lucrative if exploited. Fracking however requires vast amounts of water to pump into the wells in conjunction with sand and chemicals to fracture the shale deposits thereby releasing the trapped oil or gas deposits. Rancho Venada is a notably parched section of land in a historically dry region and would be hard pressed to accommodate the needed hydro-flow capacity to begin a fracking project.

However in November of 2015, in direct conversation with a local in ground resources infrastructure company the Shasta Lantern confirmed that wells had in fact recently been drilled on the Rancho property. It is believed a total of 9 wells, at least 6 of which were water wells, were drilled in the last quarter of 2015. These wells are thought to be potentially drilled using tax payer funded agricultural grants for livestock wellheads, however no livestock is believed to be present on the property. This information was fact checked by Agenda 21 radio.

In further research the Shasta Lantern has discovered there is a potential as well for geothermal development in the area of the Rancho Venada property. In a radical new procedure headed up by Berkeley-Livermore Labs known as Induced Seismicity it may be possible to ” revitalize” defunct geothermal vents not hot enough to produce the required steam for power production. This project is believed to be headed by Steve Bohlen, the former head of the California Conservation Department Oil, Gas and Geothermal Division, who resigned last year amidst the Jerry Brown Survey Scandal and returned to his former employer Berkeley-Livermore.

Induced Seismicity is a process of injecting water into super heated vents to produce “micro-quakes” to fracture bedrock formations and open those vents to exploitation. A similar project is already underway at the nearby Geysers Geothermal field operated by CalPine Power. At this time 20 million gallons a day of reclaimed waste water is pumped from Santa Rosa and Lake County sources to the CalPine plant for injection into thermal vents to maintain steam pressure for power production. The vents near and potentially on the Rancho property are akin to those of the Geyser field as in they could be exploited for power production if they had access to a reliable water source.

Enter California’s recent $7.5 Billion water Bond and the Sites Reservoir Project. In 2015 the water bond was overwhelmingly passed, minus support of the 10 most Northern Counties of California none of which voted to pass the bond, to ostensibly create new water storage areas for drought relief. Sites Reservoir is the at the top of the list of those projects, purportedly for agricultural use. Yet in discussion with a local hydrologist and engineer he claims that the Sites Reservoir design and capacity is incompatible and impracticable for agricultural irrigation use.

First off Sites Reservoir does not represent a true water storage reservoir as it relies on pumping water from the Sacramento River through miles of canals to sustain the water level. This is a diversion of water, not new storage. Furthermore due to the distance traveled to reach the reservoir the captured water could see as much as 50% surface evaporation.

Secondly due to the shallowness of the reservoir and the manner of water capture it will be a “warm bodied reservoir” prone to toxic algae blooms making it totally unfeasible for recreational or irrigation usage.

However our source did state that Sites Reservoir did have one big plus. As the reservoir is filled it will begin to saturate the surrounding areas, especially down stream of the reservoir, and raise the water table and create a new aquifer. It just so happens, mere miles, downstream from the Sites Project is Jerry Brown’s Rancho Venada Property. Although the Sites Reservoir appears to be inadequate for its stated purpose of water storage and irrigation, it is in a prime location and of sufficient capacity to feed the interests of energy companies hungry for water to frack oil, gas and geothermal deposits in the area.

In conclusion some facts have become quite clear. Jerry Brown did in fact use public funds to conduct a resource survey of his land, in all probability to examine potential natural resource exploitation. These services are not readily available to any California citizen as claimed by Brown and staff. Despite claims to the opposite, wells including gas and oil, do exist on the Rancho Venada property. At least two of those wells have good potential to be exploited for commercial fossil fuel production if given access to the needed water supplies. In direct contradiction to Jerry Brown’s staff claims that no substantial oil deposits were located on the ranch, shale oil deposits exist in great abundance, in fact the ranch is in the middle of a potential lake of shale oil. Upon further neutral examination, the Sites Reservoir is a poor model for it’s stated purpose of irrigation and water storage. It does however provide ready access to a sustainable supply of water to interests, including possibly Governor Brown and his property, wanting to exploit the area by fracking.

There is one problem with Governor Brown’s attempt to sweep this situation under the rug as nothing more than an interest in family history. Facts Jerry, those “fracking” facts.