California
Millions of Californians live near oil and gas wells that are in the path of wildfires
As firefighters continue to battle more than two dozen active wildfires in California, new research has found that millions of people are living in close proximity to oil and gas wells that are in the potential path of flames.
More than 100,000 wells in 19 states west of the Mississippi River are in areas that have burned in recent decades and face a high risk of burning in the future, with the vast majority in California, according to a study published recently in the journal One Earth.
What’s more, nearly 3 million Americans live within 3,200 feet of those wells, putting them at heightened risk of explosions, air and water pollution, infrastructure damage and other hazards.
“One of the things that surprised me was just the extent of how many oil wells had been in wildfire burn areas in the past, and how much this was impacting people in California — and is likely to in the coming century,” said David J.X. González, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley.
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California is particularly vulnerable to the threat. Of the roughly 118,000 western oil wells in high fire risk areas, 103,878 of them — more than 87% — are in California, with 2.6 million residents living in close proximity to them, according to the study, which was described as the first to investigate historic and projected wildfire threats to oil and gas infrastructure in the United States.
The researchers examined active and inactive oil wells because some inactive wells continue to leak methane and other harmful or combustible emissions, González said. In California, the danger is particularly high in Los Angeles, Fresno, Kern and Orange counties, which are high fire risk areas that are also home to large populations and numerous wells.
A pump station sits idle near homes in Arvin, Calif., where toxic fumes from a nearby well made residents sick and forced evacuations in November 2019.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Many Angelenos have already experienced the perils of living near oil and gas infrastructure. In 1985, methane linked to a long-abandoned oil field fed an explosion at a Ross Dress for Less store in Fairfax, injuring more than 20 people.
In 2015, a massive gas leak from the Aliso Canyon underground storage facility near Porter Ranch released about 100,000 tons of methane, ethane and other chemicals into the air, forcing more than 8,000 families to flee their homes and prompting reports of nausea, skin rashes, nosebleeds and other health issues.
Four years later, a 90-year-old well erupted beneath a construction site in Marina del Rey and spewed oil, gas and other debris into the air for several days.
And in 2017, the Thomas fire burned through areas of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties that contained more than 2,100 oil and gas wells — the long-term effects of which have yet to be studied.
It’s not only California that is at risk however. Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico also host wells in high fire risk areas, the study says. The U.S., in general, has been the top global producer of crude oil and natural gas since 2014, with the majority of production concentrated in the West.
Additionally, oil drilling continues across the country, despite federal and state efforts to curb new wells and cap old ones. One of the provisions included in President Biden’s landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, allows for new oil leases to be auctioned on federally managed lands, which means California and other states could see more new wells in the future.
But the California Department of Geologic Energy Management, which oversees oil and gas wells in the state, said production here has been steadily declining since its peak in 1985.
“Presently, CalGEM approves far more permitting applications from operators to plug oil wells than it does to drill new wells,” agency spokeswoman Janice Mackey said in an email. She noted that over the last 12 months, the state agency approved 5,059 permits to permanently plug oil and gas wells while approving only 56 new drills.
Mackey said most of the nearly 250,000 wells under the state agency’s jurisdiction are in the San Joaquin Valley, “but there are also many others in high fire threat areas such as Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties.”
That could prove to be a problem as wildfire activity continues to worsen, even in the face of slowing oil production. One recent study found that wildfire burn areas in California could increase 50% or more by midcentury, due largely to climate change. Eighteen of the state’s 20 largest wildfires have occurred since 2000.
Additionally, Mackey said the placement of new wells — which are determined by oil and gas operators who seek permits from local governments — has little to do with fire risk.
“California’s oil fields are well established from decades to [over a] century old,” she said. “Operators continue to drill in areas where oil and gas is known to exist.”
Estimates included in the study indicate the hazards will get worse in the decades ahead as population and wildfire activity expand. Between 1984 and 2019, the researchers documented a five-fold increase in the number of wells located in wildfire burn areas, and a doubling of the population living within 3,200 feet of those wells.
By midcentury, more than 122,000 wells are expected to be in high wildfire risk areas, and by late century that number will grow to more than 205,000, according to the study. Both projections are significantly higher when also accounting for moderate wildfire risk areas, and both show that California will continue to experience the lion’s share.
“Wildfires are increasingly burning in oil fields over the past four decades, and it’s a trend that’s very likely to continue throughout the rest of the century, including near some densely populated parts of California,” González said.
A 2020 photo shows one of more than 1,100 producing oil wells in the McKittrick oil field, just north of McKittrick, Calif., on State Route 33.
(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
He added that estimates for the number of wells and people in harm’s way are likely conservative, as the study assessed wells drilled before 2020. That same year was California’s worst wildfire year on record, and saw more than 4.3 million acres burn.
The researchers also found that exposure to oil wells in the path of wildfires was unevenly distributed. Black, Latino and Native American people faced disproportionate risk.
The reasons for this are myriad, according to González.
For one, an estimated 350,000 new houses are constructed each year in the wildland urban interface, or the area where human development meets forestland and other natural landscapes. Such areas often draw people seeking lower costs of living, but face significant wildfire risks because of their remoteness and high vegetation content.
In urban areas, research has found that oil wells are more likely to be sited in neighborhoods that were historically redlined, or racially segregated. New wells are also disproportionately drilled in areas where Black and Latino people live.
There are solutions, however — or at least recommendations to help mitigate the risks of oil wells in populated, wildfire-prone regions. California recently approved legislation that prohibits new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, healthcare facilities and other sensitive sites.
The state will also receive more than $35 million in federal funding to help plug and remediate more than 200 high-risk orphaned oil and gas wells, and plans to invest more than a quarter of a billion state and federal dollars into orphan well plugging in the coming years.
The researchers also recommended limiting or eliminating drilling in high wildfire risk areas, and investing in better technology for monitoring wells for leaks of flammable gases.
“There’s a strong base of evidence that active wells are harmful for people that live nearby — even in the absence of wildfires,” González said. “So I think from a public health perspective, additional protections are well justified.”
Mackey, of the California Department of Geologic Energy Management, said oil and gas operators in the state are subject to multiple layers of regulation, including requirements that well pads and tanks be kept free of vegetation, and that wells within specified distances of homes and public rights-of-way have fire prevention devices, sensors and alarm systems.
“In the event of a fire, CalGEM will contact affected field operators to warn them of the possible risk and discuss strategies to prevent damage to wells and equipment,” she said. “Operators are directed to close pipelines and tanks and shut off power to wells if they are not already doing so. Operators also have fire suppression capabilities they deploy during emergencies.”
During the Thomas fire, which was the largest in California at the time, the operators in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties shut down their wells, pipelines and rig work as part of their emergency response to mitigate the risk of fire-related incidents, she said.
Despite such efforts, the study also highlighted what it referred to as a “pernicious feedback loop.” The production and consumption of fossil fuels are driving global warming, which is in turn increasing the frequency and intensity of wildfires, it says. Greenhouse gases emitted by fires are also exacerbating climate change and contributing to the cycle.
González said he hopes the study will prompt more action to not only reduce wildfires, but also to better protect people living in or near the oil wells in their paths.
“We have an opportunity now to take action to prevent future disasters,” he said.
Gerald Kowalczyk tried to buy a hamburger with credit cards he found on the floor. Then, while presumed innocent, he spent months in a California jail — not because a judge determined he was dangerous, not because he threatened anyone, but because the court set bail at $75,000 for a man who couldn’t afford it, then simply denied bail altogether, in defiance of the law. Last week, the California Supreme Court unanimously said no more. The court held that pretrial liberty is the norm; incarceration before conviction for any crime is the rare, carefully limited exception. If courts choose to condition freedom on a monetary payment it “must” be “an amount that is reasonable.”
For years, California courts ran an unconstitutional shadow detention system. The mechanics were straightforward: Set bail at an amount the defendant cannot pay and the result is the same as ordering detention outright. As the court explained in its Kowalczyk ruling, pretrial detention requires strong evidence of a serious charge and “clear and convincing evidence establishing a substantial likelihood that the defendant’s release would result in great bodily harm to others.” Instead, as Justice Joshua P. Groban explains in concurrence, courts have used money bail to detain poor people accused of nonviolent offenses with “devastating repercussions for their employment, education, housing, access to public benefits, immigration status, and family stability.”
This wasn’t a bug. It was the system.
Last week’s ruling closes that loophole — unambiguously and unanimously. Courts can no longer use unaffordable bail as a backdoor detention order. Where detention isn’t authorized, bail must be set at an attainable amount, based on the defendant’s actual circumstances. The ruling builds directly on the Humphrey precedent from 2021, a California Supreme Court decision that first held wealth-based detention unconstitutional and a case I helped bring.
I know how hard these victories are to win. I also know how easily they can be ignored.
Even after Humphrey was decided, across Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties, judges asked about a defendant’s financial circumstances exactly once out of nearly 250 observed cases. In more than 95% of hearings, judges cited no legal standard at all when ordering detention. More than 90% of people jailed pretrial were charged with offenses that didn’t even qualify for detention under the California Constitution: shoplifting, driving without a license, vandalism. These findings came from Silicon Valley De-Bug, a community organization whose members spent years watching what happens in arraignment courtrooms.
The system didn’t follow the rules set out in Humphrey. We must ensure the system makes good on the unanimous ruling in Kowalczyk.
Start with public defense. California is one of just two states that contributes no funding to trial-level public defense, leaving the 58 counties with no state standards or oversight. The result is a patchwork of wildly unequal and inadequate representation. Last week’s ruling requires courts to make individualized findings about flight risk, public safety, alternative release conditions and ability to pay — which means defense attorneys must be present at or before arraignment, prepared to make ability-to-pay arguments, demand findings and challenge unaffordable bail on the record. In counties where public defenders carry caseloads of 100 or more, that is not happening. It cannot happen without resources.
Then there is the question of alternatives. The ruling requires judges to consider conditions of release — drug treatment, check-ins, social services referrals, in serious cases ankle monitoring — before resorting to money bail or detention. But these options exist only where counties have invested in pretrial services outside of law enforcement, programs such as San Francisco’s Pretrial Diversion Project. Most haven’t. A constitutional right to alternatives is hollow without alternatives for judges to choose from.
Finally, the Judicial Council, which makes policy for California courts, should establish monitoring standards, reporting requirements and training protocols that ensure courts no longer impose unnecessary or unconstitutional pretrial incarceration.
Kenneth Humphrey spent 250 days in jail for $5 and a bottle of cologne. Gerald Kowalczyk spent months inside for a hamburger. Behind each of them are tens of thousands of Californians who spent similar time behind bars unjustly, who lost jobs and homes and custody of their children, because the system treated their poverty as grounds for imprisonment.
The Supreme Court has now said clearly what our Constitution has since 1849: Pretrial liberty is the norm. Pretrial detention is the carefully limited exception. There is a good reason for the presumption of innocence: 1 in 3 California arrests does not lead to any conviction, and upending people’s lives by jailing them pretrial is so destabilizing it actually increases future crime.
Let’s ensure this presumption of innocence means something in practice if you, or your loved one, need it.
Chesa Boudin is the former district attorney of San Francisco and the executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Twenty-nine people were busted with fake IDs inside a sushi restaurant on California’s Central Coast on April 23, according to the San Luis Obispo Police Department.
Undercover agents with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control busted the underage drinkers at HaHa Sushi and Ramen on the 1000 block of Olive Street. Inside the restaurant, agents saw “a large group of youthful-appearing individuals” ordering and drinking alcohol, the San Luis Obispo Police Department said.
“In accordance with state law, agents contacted and identified the members of the group, discovering no one was 21 years old and every person was in possession of a fake identification card,” police said.
During the investigation, 29 people were cited and released for possession of a fake ID. Six of these suspects were arrested for being minors in possession of alcohol. All of the suspects were cited and released from custody at the restaurant.
“Preventing the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors helps increase public safety by reducing DUI arrests and collisions,” the San Luis Obispo Police Department said. “Statistics have shown that young people under the age of 21 have a much higher risk of being involved in a collision than older drivers. About 25% of fatal crashes involve underage drinking, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.”
California
California junior college athletes speak out on trans controversy that’s now in the Trump admin’s crosshairs
Santa Rosa Junior College was just supposed to be a stepping stone for Madison Shaw. Instead, she stepped right into a transgender athlete scandal that is now being investigated by the federal government.
With her graduation coming up, she has to move forward without being able to chase her dream of playing NCAA volleyball, which was the whole reason she went to Santa Rosa in the first place.
“It was the only plan I had,” Shaw told Fox News Digital of transferring to an NCAA program.
“I was planning on going to Chico [State University] and transferring, and getting set up through the recruiting process in that. And I wasn’t even able to upload any film or have a coach come out for my sophomore year. Because that year I was forced to be off the team.”
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Shaw had to step away from her volleyball team in the fall because she didn’t want to share a locker room with a biological male, and felt her Title IX rights to privacy, safety and equal opportunity were being violated. She had to throw away her plans for her sophomore season, and any chance of making it to an NCAA program.
Because Santa Rosa, as a junior college and not affiliated with the NCAA, and did not have to comply with the NCAA’s updated policy to prevent biological males from competing in women’s sports, Madison and her teammates ended up on the same roster as a trans athlete.
The California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) allows transgender athletes to participate based on their gender identity. Biological males can compete on women’s teams after one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Santa Rosa and the CCCAA as a whole have been under Title IX investigations by the U.S. Department of Education, and the federal Title IX task force, since January, after Madison and two teammates sent an S.O.S.
SANTA ROSA WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS OPEN UP ON TRANS TEAMMATE’S ALLEGED SPIKES TO THE HEAD
Madison, and her freshman teammates Brielle Galli and Gracie Shaw, Madison’s sister, filed a Title IX complaint last September that brought attention to what was going on with their team.
Once the complaint became public, and garnered national media attention, multiple tense on-campus incidents allegedly occurred.
The three women allege Santa Rosa President Dr. Angélica Garcia led a pro-trans rally before a volleyball game, handed out packets to attendees.
“The president of our school had a rally to support our male athlete and had packets that were being hand handed out that said that our school is a gender inclusive closet,” Gracie Shaw alleged, with Madison Shaw and Galli corroborating the allegations.
INSIDE GAVIN NEWSOM’S TRANSGENDER VOLLEYBALL CRISIS
Santa Rosa Junior College students Gracie Shaw, Brielle Galli and Madison Shaw (Fox News)
Teammates who had once been friends began distancing themselves, and in some cases, they said, actively excluded them.
“We were completely ostracized,” Gracie Shaw said. “We were left in the dark.”
They said teammates created separate group chats without them and held meetings they were not invited to, effectively cutting off communication.
The players said they received backlash on social media and, at times, felt uncomfortable on campus. In one instance, they recalled being recorded and photographed by other students after being recognized in connection with the complaint.
The incident occurred when two other students set up a table with a sign that read “We are Christians, ask us anything.”
The women claim that the two men at the table were being told by other students that they were “hateful people.”
And soon, the anti-Christian crowd realized who the three women were, and two other students allegedly began to record Gracie Shaw and Galli, non-consensually.
The women say the only time the college and its administrators expressed concern for their well-being was in an investigative interview after news of their Title IX complaint had gone public.
“Those interviews really rubbed me the wrong way,” Galli said.
“They kept pushing the same questions on us trying to get a different answer and trying to make us say something that wasn’t true. They kept stating that or they wanted us to state that it was our choice when really we were left with no choice with the way that we were made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe…
“They kept in bringing up the fact that there are so many resources available to us, so many counseling options and just so many resources that are just the school will provide for us. And that was a little ridiculous to me because throughout the whole season when we were participating, we had made it clear to our coach that we didn’t feel safe coming to the games.”
Santa Rosa Junior College provided a statement to Fox News Digital responding to the three women’s statements.
“Santa Rosa Junior College is committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for all students and employees. The District complies with California Community College Athletic Association regulations, which govern student eligibility and participation in our athletic programs,” the statement said.
“We respect the legal privacy rights of all students and cannot discuss individual circumstances. What we can affirm is that SRJC takes all reports seriously and responds through established procedures.”
But there were some moments when the women felt they were being supported, not by administrators, but male athletes at a competing school.
When Santa Rosa Junior College faced Sierra College in Rocklin, California, weeks after the complaint was filed, a “save women’s sports” protest broke out outside of the gym.
One of the protesters, local women’s sports activist Beth Bourne, handed out protest signs to students who attended the game and said it was the first time she’d seen college students protest the issue in person.
Sierra’s men’s athletes even joined in on the protesting.
California college students protest the participation of a transgender volleyball player at a women’s game. (Beth Bourne)
“There were men that were college students… that were holding those signs in support of us. Even though they probably didn’t know who we were. They knew that this was something that, that they could, even if it’s a small thing, just like just holding a sign up, they knew that it would make an impact,” Galli said.
It was a rare bright moment in an otherwise grueling school year. But now the summer is coming.
The women can at least move forward knowing their activism caught the attention of the federal government, as the Title IX investigations into the college and the entire CCCAA press on.
And as the three women look to regroup and determine the next step in their education, they each expressed gratitude for President Donald Trump’s administration for having their backs.
But they’re still dealing with the irreversible effects on their futures, and are now navigating life after missing a chance at their NCAA dreams.
Madison Shaw said she is currently working three jobs as she tries to save up for tuition.
“Coming from a very athletic family, we all played sports,” she said. “For them to see this opportunity taken away was very hard on them, knowing that I wasn’t going to get the same opportunities they had when they played sports. And even just financially, this was a way for me to move on past the JC, so it was hard for them to watch.”
Galli found herself in the same situation.
“I saw it as my opportunity to pursue [NCAA sports],” Galli said of her decision to play at Santa Rosa. “I wanted to reach out and try to get recruited, and like Madison said, we didn’t really get the opportunity to play so we didn’t have any film that we could send to the coaches.”
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Gracie Shaw did not step away from the team right away, and continued practicing, but wouldn’t play in games as a form of protest. But eventually she just couldn’t take it anymore. she stepped away from the team as the situation progressed, and more national attention befell the team.
“I always wanted to get recruited and play at the next level, that was the plan,” Gracie Shaw said.
Madison Shaw continues to work her jobs and explore opportunities outside of playing sports, while Galli and Gracie Shaw are currently set to do another year of junior college.
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