Massive Chevron Oil Spill in California

Cymric spill in May    Dept of Fish and Wildlife

Since May 10, a leak in an oil well operated by Chevron has resulted in 800,000 gallons of an oil/water mixture flooding an arroyo in the company’s sprawling Cymric Oil Field in California’s Kern County. The leak, euphemistic call a “surface expression” is the result of the injection of steam through multiple injection sites to heat up crude petroleum at depths of 1000 feet below the surface.

On June 11, the company, in a brief incident report to the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said that a total of about 6,000 gallons of liquid had spilled by that date. On Thursday [July 11], the amount stood at nearly 795,000 gallons….

The spilled material consists of about one-third oil and two-thirds water, according to Chevron's entries in the OES hazardous spill database. That would mean nearly 265,000 gallons of oil have been discharged.

On Friday, July 12, the state finally cracked down on Chevron. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) accused Chevron of failing to take immediate and appropriate actions to stop the discharge of additional liquid.

"The division has determined that operator has had a continuous and interconnected series of surface expressions on its property that are not 'low-energy seeps' where, based upon the supervisor's information and belief, operator has not yet done everything that is necessary to prevent future occurrences," the agency's order said.  

"The supervisor is requiring the operator, among other things, to take all measures to stop flow from the established surface expressions near the subject well and prevent any new surface expressions," the order states.

A press release from the Last Change Alliance added some recent regulatory history as context for this event. In 2018, Chevron worked with the Trump EPA to change the rules regarding the aquifer in the Cymric Oil Field.

In 2018 at the request of Chevron and other oil companies, state regulators and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved an exemption that removed protections from an aquifer in the Cymric Oil Field. Those agencies assured the public that allowing injection would not endanger nearby groundwater because the fluids would not migrate. This spill brings into question the assumptions behind that decision.

The Last Change Alliance also pointed out that in January, the DOGGR “adopted weaker restrictions on the practice” of steam injection.

Chevron and the other oil companies are doing everything possible to squeeze the last few drops of oil ($) out of Kern County.  The complex of oil fields in the area have been in operation for decades and the extraction of oil from the area requires the use of techniques such as steam injection to bring those last gallons of oil out of the ground.