The Other California: For a time it was the Black Golden State

Talking about oil drilling in California...is that like kicking a beehive?
Picture of beehive in an old oil well taken by Mrs. Geotripper

We drill into the earth to find oil.

It is a measure of our dependence that we also fight wars over it, support vile dictators, and drill for it in the harshest conditions on the planet: in arctic tundra, in isolated deserts, and deep ocean basins. We end up dealing with huge environmental consequences as we attempt to clean up our spills and as our planet warms up at an unprecedented rate.

I can see where it once made perfect sense to go all in with oil and gas. No one knew of global warming and greenhouse gases, and in some areas the oil seemed practically as plentiful as water. It made sense when it was cheap and easy to get.  But now it is different. Oil is expensive, but it is so completely integrated into our economy that we can't easily wean ourselves from it.

California was once one of those places where the oil seemed to flow like water. The freeway economy and near total lack of public transit in the southern California metropolitan area was a consequence of the vast amount of oil that was once drilled in the Los Angeles basin. Fuel was easy to get and cheap to purchase.

From the 2009 Annual Report of the California State Oil and Gas Supervisor

Things have changed in a radical way. California produced 230 million barrels of oil in 2009, fourth in the country after Texas, Louisiana and Alaska. But oil drilling in the state is in a long-term decline; the last time our state produced oil at a level this low was in 1941. But the state uses something on the order of 700 million barrels of oil each year. Nearly two thirds of our oil has to come from somewhere else.

I didn't know a lot about the story of California oil, but a possible opportunity to lead a field trip with foreign oil geologists popped up last summer. I hit the road (and the books) and found myself in the Santa Clarita Valley discovering the site of the state's first gold rush, and some of the oldest rocks. I also stumbled across a historic oil well. Not only was it the first commercially successful oil well in California, it was also the longest continually operating oil well in the world, pumping oil from 1876 to 1989 (a similar claim is made about a well in Pennsylvania, though). It was Pico No. 4.

Equipment has been removed throughout Pico Canyon, but the well casing was kept at Pico No. 4 because of the historic nature of the well. A historical monument can be seen in the background.

Pico No. 4 was not the first attempt at oil drilling in the state. The remote village of Petrolia in northern California was the site of a drilling attempt in 1861, but the oil was very quickly depleted. Other attempts were made in the 1860s, but none were successful until Charles Mentry started drilling a series of wells in Pico Canyon. The fourth well proved successful, and the production began. The town of Mentryville popped up in the lower part of the valley.

The oil drilling took a toll. When production started to fall, wells were abandoned, villages turned into ghost towns, and equipment littered the canyon. Eventually Chevron pulled out of the region entirely, but they clearly made an effort to clean up some of the worst of the damage, and turned the land over to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Pico Canyon is now a parkland, and it is a surprisingly pleasant place to visit, given the checkered history of our abuse of the landscape.

There is a modest fee for parking at Mentryville, and the "trail" leads up the canyon through the chaparral covered slopes and riparian woodland. Although the road is paved for a mile or so, the gates are locked, so you will see bikers, joggers and hikers, not cars.

The slopes are made of sedimentary rocks that formed in Pliocene time, mostly within the last 5 million years in a shallow marine environment. The exposed formations include the Pico Formation and the Towsley Formation. The rocks are steeply tilted, but at the head of canyon they fold over, forming an anticline that served as the oil trap. Around eighty wells were once present in the upper canyon.

It was an enjoyable stroll, even though the late August day was pretty hot. It was nice to find some occasional trees shading the road.

I found myself wondering how many wildflowers can be seen during the spring. It must be quite a show!

My time was limited, so I turned back at the end of the pavement. Trails continue beyond into adjacent canyons allowing for a number of choices in hiking destinations.

We wandered back down to Mentryville and looked at some of the buildings, and then headed back out to the highway.

The ghost town of Mentryville still has a few buildings.

The thought that occurred to me as I walked back down the canyon is that given enough of it, time does heal some wounds.

More Dangerous Than Cocaine, #4: We have met the enemy...

...and he is us.

This picture is making the rounds today. It's appalling. It's easy to blame oil companies for the nefarious happenings in the Gulf of Mexico, or lax government regulation, or complacent attitudes over safety, but ultimately, the blame lies with ourselves. A number of commentators in recent days have pointed out that every president since Richard Nixon have described the need for "energy independence", but as for taking real action, well, the only guy who tried to actually say we had to make hard choices got canned in favor of the happy-go-lucky grandfathery "morning in America" fellow in 1980. Meanwhile, ever since the 1970's, we've continued wasting petroleum and almost totally ignored the problem.

Even now, hardly anyone in the media or in the broader culture seems to be discussing the bigger problem. It's not seeping into the national conciousness the way it is into the gulf. It's not just the mess we made in the Gulf. It's the problem of the oil we burn. We are addicted to petroleum; we are doing nothing to curb that addiction, we are just working harder and paying more to feed our addiction. But the oil is running out, and we have no viable alternatives. We are poisoning ourselves, and overheating our atmosphere, but we will tolerate no talk of ...dare I say it?...sacrificing. Instead, we will just drift along until we hit a very tragic wall. Then the sacrifice will be on us whether we like it or not. Gas at $20/gallon? Not so far away. No gas at all, like the 1970's? Probably.

Contrary to the myth, you can't see the Great Wall of China from space. Check out the larger version of the picture above...maybe you are sharper-eyed than I am, but how sad that the one bit of evidence that we live on this planet that is visible from space is an oil slick. The oil spilled in the gulf may amount to 2 million barrels so far (over the two months)...that's about one-tenth of what we consume as a country per day.

I..er..uh, I have more to say, but I think American Idol is on. See ya'.

Satellite Imagery from NASA, full image is here (10 mb).

Learn about Pogo and the 1971 Earth Day Poster with the famous line "he is us" here.

More Dangerous Than Cocaine...Part 2

Photo from AP via Huffington Post (more here)

A drug addiction goes through stages: the highs, the loss of the high, the stealing for a hit, and then one starts hurting those around them to maintain the habit. And then gets worse, it's harder and harder to support the habit. And eventually one hits bottom.

It's been more than a month since my first post on the BP oil spill. The full magnitude of this disaster is still just beginning to evolve. I hear they've been trying to prevent the media from showing pictures of dead and dying animals. I wonder why? I've heard the money comparisons coming from Louisiana: offshore oil drilling produces several tens of billion of dollars annually and fishing only a billion or so. Choices. The oil is going to curl around Florida and move up the eastern Atlantic Coast. But we shouldn't stop offshore drilling; we know NOW how to keep it safe. Oh, and the whole disaster is the fault of environmentalists because we won't let them drill every last spot on land (Palin...again).

At what point will the media and the politicians start asking the right questions? When are we going to face our addiction, and take real steps towards breaking it? Do we do it when we still have good choices, or do we wait until our only choices are bad ones.

Once again: there isn't enough oil. We can't drill our way out of this problem.

More Dangerous Than Cocaine...

Just a short thought tonight...


If you haven't seen it, check out this video of the BP oil leak, via Deep Sea News (if it isn't showing right, try this link). A mile underwater, fifty miles from our shores. And turning into an environmental and economic catastrophe.

How did we end up here? The comparison to drug addiction is so apt. At first, the oil was easy, literally leaking out of the ground in places (the picture below is Signal Hill in Long Beach, California in the 1920's). Our country grew dependent on it for transportation, for agriculture, for plastic for God's sake, until it pervaded our society. We started to run short in the 1970's, and realized we were dependent on it, and that it was becoming expensive to maintain our habit. We made tentative efforts to conserve it, to use a bit less, and our overseas suppliers flooded the market until we gave up such silly pursuits as electric cars.

And where are we now? Certain politicians tell us we have to drill our way out of this fix, going into ever more hazardous environments to find crude. They speak as if there is enough oil underground on our continental shelves to relieve our dependence on foreign sources. What can we geologists say?

There isn't enough.

We could drill every drop in our country's territory, and have no more than a decade's worth. There are alternatives, but we need politicians and commentators who have the courage to do an intervention, to tell us the hard truths. Unfortunately, they are cowards, or worse, in the pockets of the pushers.

Update: My first impression of the Climate Bill is that it is just the kind of soft squishy something-for-every polluter/energy producer that is neither bold action, nor particularly helpful.

One of the Biggest Political Ironies I think I will ever see...

1969 Oil Spill in Santa Barbara Channel, California (AP photo from Los Angeles Times)

However one might feel about drilling for oil in the continental shelf of the United States, the events of the last month have to stand as one of the greatest political ironies in the country's history. One month after a Democratic (!) president opens up vast areas for offshore drilling, a massive explosion kills eleven people on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and a huge oil slick is making landfall along the shorelines of what will ultimately include four states. You may be able to think of some better examples, but it makes me think of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ceded California to the United States on February 2, 1848, when unbeknownst to the signing parties, gold had been discovered in California on January 24 of the same year. We are only seeing the beginning of what will be a long and painful time for the coastal cities, not to mention the ecosystems found there. The political ramifications will last far longer; the oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel in 1969 still resonates today. And so does the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.

I hope that the damage can be contained. It won't do anyone any good if the beaches all along the southern coasts are coated with muck. I do hope it will start a national conversation about our priorities. Despite the shrill cries of "Drill Baby, Drill", pulling the oil out of environmentally sensitive areas will do next to nothing to achieve energy independence. Without imported oil, we would pretty much use up our entire inventory of US petroleum reserves in maybe five or six years. Where will we be, then? We need to plan for a post-petroleum economy before it is forced on us, not after. It is the only way to avoid an economic disruption that will make the present-day recession look like the Roaring Twenties. But how can you explain that to representatives and senators who are incapable of looking beyond their next election day?

Deep Sea News provides a very good timeline of the events in the Gulf of Mexico.

I don't want to make light of a horrible situation, but I hope no prominent politician stands up to say how absolutely safe nuclear power is now...

A Very Tough Ride to a Post-Oil Economy

Check out this opinion piece on our impending energy choices in Salon.com, or the original article at TomDispatch.com. The websites are political, but the data and the discussion seem pretty on target from a geological point of view. It is sobering stuff; our energy choices over the next 30 years are pretty challenging, and the changeover to a post-oil economy is not going to be easy. The recession/depression we are experiencing is putting a damper on oil use; when the economy improves, oil prices will rise too. A lot. It sure would be nice if politicians could see further than their next election, and if they could make some hard choices instead of the politically expedient ones. We are being poorly served as it stands now.