It took some time, but a 2011 report by the Federal Energy Information Administration that estimated that California’s Monterey shale underground land mass formation had 15.4 billion barrels of accessible oil and a follow-up study that put the figure at 13.7 billion barrels of oil — about twice as much as the rest of the nation combined — got plenty of folks’ attention. Advances in hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, made extracting the oil cost-effective.

Excitement about a possible oil bonanza was stoked by a 2012 City Journal analysis. That continued to build in early 2013 after word spread that oil companies were already buying land above the 1,750-square-mile shale formation, which extends across much of central California to the Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo coast. Then came a 2013 USC study that estimated development of the Monterey shale could boost the state’s economic activity by 14.3 percent and had the potential to generate nearly $25 billion in new state tax revenue by 2020.

In January 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown made headlines when he said he was open to allowing fracking in California, getting blasted by environmentalists as a result. Fracking, which involves the use of underground water cannons to eradicate rock formations and allow access to previously unreachable oil and natural gas reserves, has been targeted by green groups on safety and health grounds for a decade.

But it’s been all downhill ever since for those enthusiastic about oil exploration in the Golden State. It’s not just that low oil prices have left energy companies facing a “world of hurt,” in the words of the Houston Chronicle, and without the resources to pursue large new drilling programs in California or elsewhere. It’s specific, daunting developments.

Last week, Los Angeles-based U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald halted plans to allow fracking of the Monterey shale on public lands in central California and rebuked the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for failing to do a full review of the environmental effects of the extraction technique.

In July 2015, state officials released final rules on fracking that were billed as the toughest in the nation. They were seen as much more onerous than the tough-but-manageable draft rules released in fall 2013 to the applause of energy companies.

And in May 2014, the federal Energy Information Administration — the same agency that triggered the interest in the Monterey shale in the first place — cut its estimate of how much oil could be recovered from the underground rock formation by 96 percent, to 600 million barrels.

Obama administration still backs fracking in state

Who remains enthusiastic about oil exploration in California? U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who last year criticized local governments in the Golden State for adopting fracking bans.

“There is a lot of misinformation about fracking,” Jewell told KQED in an interview. “I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science behind it and I think there needs to be more science.”

That may surprise some, given the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of a global climate-change strategy that is based on much less use of fossil fuels. But President Obama campaigned for re-election in 2012 on an “all of the above” strategy for energy production and has continued with the approach in his second term.

Jewell endorsed the fracking plan for California public land that was blocked last week by the Los Angeles federal judge. The Bureau of Land Management, the agency the judge criticized, is part of the Interior Department.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced in a press release that the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation “will invest nearly $50 million to improve water efficiency and conservation in California and 11 other western states.”

“In a time of exceptional drought, it is absolutely critical that states and the federal government leverage our funding resources so that we can make each drop count,” said Secretary Jewell. “Being ‘water smart’ means working together to fund sustainable water initiatives that use the best available science to improve water conservation and help water resource managers identify strategies to narrow the gap between supply and demand.”

Secretary Jewell made the announcement Wednesday at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, joined by Nancy Sutley, chief sustainability and economic development officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Estevan López, commissioner of the DOI Bureau of Reclamation. Her remarks included a push for more federal-state partnerships in the area of water conservancy.

“Through the WaterSMART Program, Reclamation is providing funding for water conservation improvements and water reuse projects across the West,” Reclamation Commissioner Estevan López said. “We commend the state of California for all the steps they have already taken to alleviate the impacts of the drought. We hope this federal funding for water reuse and efficiency will help us leverage scarce resources between the state and federal governments to bring much-needed relief for the people and environment of California.”

WaterSMART, according to its website, is a “program of the Department of the Interior that focuses on improving water conservation and helping water-resource managers make sound decisions about water use.”

According to the release, Reclamation is investing “more than $24 million in grants for 50 water and energy efficiency projects in 12 western states, more than $23 million for seven water reclamation and reuse projects in California, and nearly $2 million for seven water reclamation and reuse feasibility studies in California and Texas.”

Here’s the Bakersfield Californian’s account:

Brown launched a no-nonsense defense of hydraulic fracturing on “Meet the Press” Sunday, dismissing host Chuck Todd’s concerns that the practice uses too much water and could be dangerous. Brown noted California oil companies have been fracking for decades, safely, and that the practice does not use excessive amounts of water. He also reminded Todd that California imports 70 percent of its annual oil consumption, and banning it would hardly make a dent in consumption but force the state to import yet more oil on rail cars.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in sharp contrast, has accepted the contention of greens that fracking is a grave environmental threat. That California’s governor parts with Cuomo and sides with energy companies led liberal bloggers Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine to vent on their Calbuzz blog. This is from an item entitled, “Say It Isn’t So: Is Jerry Brown Really A Fracking Whore?”

On the one hand, he calls for – and even leads – a “crusade to protect our climate”; on the other he allows oil companies to engage in a practice that science and common sense insist is destructive, wasteful and unsafe to the environment and to Californians.

So, more in sadness than in anger, we must ask: Why is Brown acting a fracking whore?

Quid Pro Quo? Oh No. Surely, it can’t be that Occidental Petroleum gave $500,000 in 2012 to help Brown pass his crucial Proposition 30, which raised taxes on wealthy Californians and increased spending on public education. That would seem oh too quid quo pro for this political Jeremiah who self-righteously thunders that climate change denial “borders on the immoral.”

And yet, whenever he is challenged on his approval of fracking – he called it a “fabulous economic opportunity” in May 2013 – Brown slips the punch by citing all the other good stuff he’s set in motion to combat climate change.

Governor blasted for ‘lack of integrity’

On Friday, a Huffington Post writer — Paul Y. Song, a California physician who once helped advise the Brown administration — weighed in with a post headlined,”Governor Brown, We Urge You to Do What Is Right for Our Water and Our Environment!”

The Governor stated on Meet the Press last Sunday that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the drought is no reason to ban fracking.

Worse, while Gov. Brown called out Senator Mitch McConnell for advocating on behalf of coal development amid concerns about climate change and drought, Brown refuses to stand up to fossil fuel development in California in the face of irrefutable evidence that fracking wastes California’s water. In so doing, Governor Brown sells out the needs of the people of California in order to serve the greed of the oil industry.

The consequences of Gov. Brown’s failure to halt fracking and protect California’s fragile water supply does not just represent a lack of political integrity, but bears dire consequences for California’s future.

Neither the Calbuzz or Huffington Post pieces noted that President Barack Obama and his administration have a long record of arguing that fracking is safe and welcoming its success in triggering the brown energy boom.

The administration is also in the process of adopting rules to govern fracking on leased federal lands.

In a January interview with KQED, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell specifically knocked California fracking critics as misinformed.

Beyond federal and state efforts, California’s tech titans have upped the ante with momentous new investments that promise to revolutionize electricity production.

For years, solar power has been touted by advocates as a major future source of “alternative energy.” Most recently, fresh off promising Californians a measure of federal drought relief, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell debuted Desert Sunlight. It’s a new 4,000-acre solar energy “farm” in the hot and dry outer reaches of of Riverside County and one of the largest such projects in the world.

But as the Los Angeles Times reported, the farm “opens at time of uncertainty for future utility-scale solar development in California, which has been slowing in recent years as federal assistance begins to disappear and investor interest fades.”

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley has turned its attention to solar power. Despite the prospect of a 20 percent drop in federal investment tax credits, tech entrepreneurs have taken steps to scale solar power use in a way that promises almost immediate results.

First Solar

USA Today reported First Solar received nearly $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees to build out Desert Sunlight. But now priorities are shifting.

According to Market Watch, First Solar just inked a huge new deal to supply power to tech behemoth Apple Inc.:

“Apple committed $848 million for clean energy from First Solar’s California Flats Solar Project in Monterey County, Calif. Apple will receive electricity from 130 megawatts (MW)AC of the solar project under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA), the largest agreement in the industry to provide clean energy to a commercial end user.”

Although Apple CEO Tim Cook heartened environmentalists by casting the decision as a blow against climate change, it was ultimately driven by a simple imperative: making a good business bet.

“By 2016,” Mother Jones noted, “solar is projected to be as cheap or cheaper than electricity from the conventional grid in every state except three.”

In a substantial irony, Silicon Valley observers pointed out solar power has benefited greatly from rising costs for traditional energy, which California’s emissions law drives upward. As the Silicon Valley Business Journal observed:

“Chris Shea, who heads up the Silicon Valley territory for Livermore-based installer Solar Universe, a SolarCity competitor, said the industry has had a tailwind thanks to rising rates for conventional power. ‘Going green is a secondary benefit of the whole thing,’ he said. ‘Ultimately, it’s, “How do I get my cost of living down?” We’ve seen, since we started, almost a doubling of electrical cost that PG&E charges even to their lowest tier,’ said Shea, who employs about 20 out of his Santa Clara office.”

Solving the storage problem

SolarCity, one of the most important players in the industry, also recently figured into a massive new technological twist on alternative energy. Although state and federal regulators had pushed Americans to buy zero-emission cars, the technology faced a simple problem: battery life often didn’t measure up to what drivers’ hopes.

Now developments in car batteries are spreading to other areas of life that use batteries.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has partnered with SolarCity with an eye toward revolutionizing storage capacity — a challenge to the landscape dominated by public utilities. SolarCity, run by Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive, has begun to install Tesla batteries.

And The Verge reported Musk and Rive have gone public with their big plans to scale stored solar energy well beyond cars:

“Musk and Rive mentioned that every SolarCity unit would come with battery storage within five to ten years, and that the systems would supply power at a lower cost than natural gas. Those batteries will come from the [Tesla] gigafactory, currently being built in Nevada. Once the factory comes online, the strong demand for energy storage will allow it to immediately ramp up production and achieve economies of scale. Tesla CTO JB Straubel (who has said that he “might love batteries more than cars”) says that the market for stationary batteries “can scale faster than automotive” and that a full 30 percent of the gigafactory will be dedicated to them.”

California officials, The Verge pointed out, have set out a policy goal of 1.3 gigawatts of storage by 2020.

The way things are turning out, it may be the private sector, not government-subsidized projects, that charges the electric future.

The worst two examples of this conscious decision to leave out perhaps the strongest argument that pro-fracking forces can offer were in the Sacramento Bee and the L.A. Times.

In 2013, the Bee’s Pulizer-winning environmental reporter, Tom Knudson, wrote a voluminous, harshly critical look at fracking and California. He never mentioned that the Obama administration believes it to be just like another heavy industry that can be made safe enough with proper regulation.

Also in 2013, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell held a news conference announcing rules for fracking on federal land. The New York Times noted that Jewell’s remarks included pointed criticism of those who depicted fracking as unsafe. The Los Angeles Times covered the same press conference. Rather incredibly, it ignored Jewell’s remarks and instead quoted an oil industry figure as saying fracking was safe.

Cabinet member hits fracking ‘misinformation’

Now Jewell may have made it close to impossible for the California media to continue ignoring the Obama administration’s view by weighing in with KQED on what she sees as the poor logic behind local fracking bans.

President Obama’s chief custodian of federal lands says local and regional bans on fracking are taking regulation of oil and gas recovery in the wrong direction.

“I would say that is the wrong way to go,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told KQED in an exclusive interview. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for industry to figure out what the rules are if different counties have different rules.”

In November, two California counties added themselves to a growing list of local bans on hydraulic fracturing. Voters approved measures in San Benito and Mendocino Counties by wide margins.

“There are a lot of fears out there in the general public and that manifests itself with local laws or regional laws,” Jewell said.

The recent move by New York to extend a statewide ban does not sit especially well with Jewell, who, as a former petroleum engineer, has hands-on experience with fracking.

“There is a lot of misinformation about fracking,” Jewell said. “I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science behind it and I think there needs to be more science.”

Will the Bee, the Times and other California newspapers ignore this latest affirmation of the Obama administration’s view that fracking is not the devil?

I don’t see how they can — even though it will remind people how long they’ve covered up the views of Jewell, Obama and the administration in general.

The steepening drop in gasoline prices in recent weeks — spurred by soaring domestic energy production and Saudi discounts for crude oil at a time of faltering global demand — is set to provide the United States economy with a multibillion-dollar boost through the holiday season and beyond.

The windfall, experts say, comes at a critical moment, with the American economy on the upswing but facing headwinds from other quarters, including weaker exports because of slow growth overseas. Gas prices recently dropped below $3 a gallon for the first time since 2010, while crude oil prices have fallen by more than $25 a barrel since midsummer, settling on Thursday just above $74.

“If oil prices stay between $75 and $95 a barrel, we would see the kind of stimulus package that the Federal Reserve or Congress could never do,” said Douglas R. Oberhelman, the chief executive of Caterpillar, the multinational maker of heavy construction equipment.

The NYT article doesn’t talk about any raging debate over fracking’s safety. The newspaper has repeatedly acknowledged that the Obama administration considers fracking to be safe if properly regulated and has never given serious ink to the apocalyptic claims of fracking haters.

Which brings us to the Los Angeles Times. On Friday, the newspaper continued its absolutely bizarre tradition of raising safety concerns about fracking without noting that the greenest administration of all time thinks it’s safe. It comes in a story about L.A. City Council members agitating for a citywide fracking ban and finding resistance from city staffers who are skeptical that would be legal:

Councilmen Mike Bonin and Paul Koretz, who championed the ban, said in a letter Wednesday that they were “extremely disappointed” that the planning department had not drafted the rules as it was asked to do nearly nine months ago.

“Your report outlines interesting recommendations and important considerations,” Bonin and Koretz wrote to the deputy director of planning, Alan Bell.

“The council, however, asked for a draft ordinance establishing a fracking moratorium for its consideration, not a report without an ordinance attached,” the councilmen wrote. …

The Los Angeles City Council voted in February to start drafting rules that would prohibit hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as fracking — and other kinds of “well stimulation” techniques until adequate environmental safeguards are adopted by state and federal governments.

Does the LAT note that the federal government strongly believes it has “adequate environmental safeguards” in place? Nah. It has a pathetic tradition to continue. This is from CalWatchdog in May 2013:

Say what you will about The New York Times, but at least it’s not in denial about fracking the way The Los Angeles Times is.

Friday’s LAT coverage of new U.S. Interior Department rules for fracking on 756 million acres of public and Indian lands depicted the rules as being strongly objectionable to both enviros and the energy exploration industry.

The NYT coverage made the industry whining seem more pro forma and offered this essential point that the LAT couldn’t bring itself to point out:

“The 171-page proposal is the first significant regulation issued under the new interior secretary, Sally Jewell. Ms. Jewell worked in the oil industry in the late 1970s and proudly said that she fracked a few wells in Oklahoma.

“Ms. Jewell said in a conference call for reporters that the administration would continue to lease large tracts of public and Indian lands for oil and gas development and that it was critical that rules keep pace with technology.

“Anticipating criticism from environmental advocates, she said: ‘I know there are those who say fracking is dangerous and should be curtailed, full stop. That ignores the reality that it has been done for decades and has the potential for developing significant domestic resources and strengthening our economy and will be done for decades to come.’”

NYT quotes Obama Cabinet member; LAT quotes flack

The L.A. Times’ account put in the “fracking is safe and has been around forever” context by quoting an oil industry trade association spokesperson. The NYT quoted THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR!

Quite a gigantic difference. But than the LAT’s Neela Banerjee and Wes Venteicher and their editors can’t have Times’ readers knowing the Obama administration likes fracking, can they? It doesn’t fit the West L.A.-Marin County-NRDC narrative.

Pretty incredible how blatant the LAT bias is here. Can’t discomfit readers with a jarring truth.

I have heard that some journos think my criticism is unfair and/or that I am a loopy ideologue. My response: However I feel (or however you feel) about fracking, isn’t it an obligation for California newspapers to relate how the, yunno, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT feels about its safety?

Of course it is.

This weekend, I revved up Nexis to see it the media blackout continues. I searched for stories that mentioned “California” and “fracking” from June 14, 2013, to June 14, 2014:

Times, Bee and Chronicle fracking coverage

I found 132 stories in the Los Angeles Times.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

One — a June 21, 2013 op-ed by Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Assn.

I found 124 stories in the Sacramento Bee.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

One — a March 30, 2014, op-ed by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association.

The Bee ran a piece from McClatchy’s D.C. bureau in late November 2013 that didn’t even raise the question of fracking’s safety; it just pointed out how widely used it was and how it was transforming the economy of several states.

So I guess that one counts, giving the Bee two stories that give the Obama perspective on fracking safety.

I found 61 stories in the San Francisco Chronicle.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

Two, by staff reporter David R. Baker. Another Baker piece describes Obama as a fracking supporter.

So that gives the Chronicle three.

So there were 317 stories mentioning “California” and “fracking” for the past year, and only six mentioned that the Obama administration considers if safe — and two of those were op-eds from oil trade association executives and one was a wire story.

So only Baker’s three stories amount to staff-produced journalism on California and fracking from the state’s three most influential newspapers that noted the profoundly important fact that the greenest administration in U.S. history sides with those who say fracking is safe.

Draw your own conclusions. Sure looks like groupthink to me.

Green, please-the-Sierra-Club groupthink.

The national media, with The Huffington Post leading the way, routinely depict the Obama administration as a happy beneficiary of the fracking boom in stories that hint at the hypocrisy of the president congratulating himself for the surface success of his “all of the above” energy strategy while wailing about fossil fuels leading to global warming.

The California media, bizarrely enough, choose never to mention the Obama administration’s views of fracking. It was a year ago today that this peculiar Golden State groupthink hit its apogee. This is from a June 14 CWD post:

The single most graphic example of the fact that there is a calculated decision made to not mention the Obama administration’s views comes from a recent article by Neela Banerjee — who has written more than any other LATer about fracking — and Wes Venteicher. Published on May 17, it dealt with Sally Jewell, Obama’s interior secretary, and her announcement of new federal fracking rules for drilling on public and Indian lands.

Banerjee and Venteicher noted the controversy over fracking and turned to an industry spokesman to offer the context that fracking has been around decades and hasn’t been the devil.

“‘States have been successfully regulating fracking for decades, including on federal lands, with no incident of contamination that would necessitate redundant federal regulation,’ said Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs for Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based trade group.”

The New York Times covered the same press conference and, like Banerjee and Venteicher, also quoted Jewell. But while the LAT offered mushy generalities from the interior secretary, veteran NYT reporter John M. Broder believed it was somewhat more significant that she said this:

“Anticipating criticism from environmental advocates, she said: ‘I know there are those who say fracking is dangerous and should be curtailed, full stop. That ignores the reality that it has been done for decades and has the potential for developing significant domestic resources and strengthening our economy and will be done for decades to come.’”

Fracking safety: NYT cites Cabinet member, LAT quotes flack

How does Banerjee sleep at night, slanting things this dramatically? When trying to steer the public toward an opinion on fracking’s safety, she quotes an oil industry flack. The New York Times quotes OBAMA’S SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. And it’s a quote the LAT reporter could have used but chose to ignore.

I rest my case.

This remains amazing. The L.A. Times has a choice of quoting a member of the Obama Cabinet or a flack for the oil industry to attest that fracking is safe.

The LAT quotes the flack.

The LAT quotes the flack.

Did I mention that the LAT quotes the flack?

The finger-pointing sure is under way. On Feb. 4, environmental writer Dan Bacher pointed at state water managers, claiming they made the California drought worse by taking water from Northern California farms and fish and sending it to Southern California cities.

Bacher claimed 827,000 acre-feet of water was sent to Southern California in 2013, where some of it was consumed by cities and some stored in Castaic Lake and Pyramid Lake, both North of Los Angeles. Bacher’s claim evokes the image of another water grab by Los Angeles almost a century ago and dramatized in the move “Chinatown.”

However, Bacher is talking about water from the State Water Project that primarily serves Southern cities, not Central Valley farms where the farm drought has hit the hardest.

Ocean in 2012

A finger pointing another direction belongs to Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition. He insists that more than 800,000-acre feet of federal Central Valley Project water was flushed to the ocean in 2012 to reestablish salmon runs in the San Joaquin River.

Water from the San Joaquin River was allowed to flow to the ocean to comply with the federal Endangered Species Act, a federal court order, and the San Joaquin River Restoration Act of 2009, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Wade’s claim evokes images of John Steinbeck’s epic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, where farmers, ironically, escaped from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to Central California.

According to Wade:

“Regarding water use in the state, it is important to remember that in an average year, the people of California commit 48% of our available water for environmental use, while 41% is used for farming, and 11% for California’s municipal and industrial uses.

“The causes of our current shortage are several — most critical is the drier than typical past two years, but we can’t just blame mother nature. We shouldn’t forget our own failure to put away water for leaner times. Just last year we had an opportunity to store up to 815,000 acre feet of water — enough for well over 4 million people, or five cities the size of San Jose. Californians must prepare for drought when water is available or suffer, as we are now, for our lack of action.”  

Nature

Among those directly affected, both fishermen and farmers allege the drought is man-made — that reservoirs were emptied before a rare entrenched winter dry spell set in. But there are other views.

Environmental organizations such as the California branch of The Nature Conservancy want to point the finger away from the Endangered Species Act and toward nature and a lack of rainfall.  But a severe drought is natural and must be planned for.

Central Valley Project farm water is co-dependent on:

a) Water releases North of the Delta;

b) Water releases from Shasta Lake and Trinity Lake into the Sacramento River that flow into the Delta;

c) South-of-the-Delta water flowing from the Sierras into the San Joaquin River, which also runs to the Delta.

A 60-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River becomes high and dry in low-rainfall years and wet in high-rainfall years.  In 2006, a federal judge ordered that this sometimes dry reach of the San Joaquin River must be wetted with enough water every year to allow for salmon runs, even if nature never historically permitted uninterrupted flows of water.

This court action resulted in taking water and money from farmers to keep an intermittently dry reach of the river perpetually wet.  Part of the problem of restoring the San Joaquin River for salmon runs is that engineers have to figure out how to run river water uphill during dry years.  The only way to do that is to send a massive gusher of water through the river that takes all future storage water with it.

Lawsuit

Some water finger-pointing went to court last year.

In May 2013, the Westlands Water District and the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority in Eastern San Joaquin Valley sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, part of the Department of the Interior, to stop the release of 109,000 acre-feet of water from Trinity Lake to save salmon for Indian Tribes and sports fishermen. In August 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California briefly issued, then rescinded, a restraining order on releasing the water. So the water is flowing now.

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association and the Yurok and Hoopla Indian Tribes responded to the suit. They wished to continue diverting the water to the Trinity River, which joins the Klamath River and flows to the sea. Earthjustice, an environmentalist group, announced on Aug. 13:

“FRESNO, CA — The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, represented by Earthjustice, filed papers today in the U.S. District Court in Fresno defending the planned release of Trinity River water needed to keep salmon alive.

“This action is in response to a lawsuit filed last week by the Westland[s] Water District and others in California’s Central Valley, demanding this water for their future crops, regardless of impacts on salmon or coastal fishing communities depending on those salmon runs for their livelihoods.

“The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water release plan would help prevent another disaster like the Klamath River Fish Kill of 2002. That year very low flows and high temperatures contributed to a massive die-off of adult Chinook salmon that is considered one of the single worst adult fish kills in U.S. history.”

The water districts are are located in the Eastern Central Valley and provide water from the federal Central Valley Project to 600,000-acres of farms in Fresno and Kings Counties. 

Impact

Concerning the release of the water, specifically the storage water behind Trinity Lake Dam, on Aug. 6 the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued a “Finding of No Significant Impact” to the environment.

However, federal law does not require a similar “impact” statement concerning the potential harm done to farms and small rural towns when their water is diverted just before a drought.

As a result, the Bureau of Reclamation reported it released 453,000 total acre-feet of water in a dry year in 2013 for fish restoration flows from the Trinity River.

Nature only waited a matter of five months before the drought struck hard. On Jan. 17, 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown declared an official drought emergency and suspended the California Environmental Quality Act.

Bi-Partisan Leaders Opposed Trinity Lake Water Releases

Congress’ fingers also were out and pointing.

Some California congressmen from both parties knew that if the Trinity Lake waters were diverted from farms that a drought would harm their constituents.  That is why the water release was opposed by a bipartisan group of Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Jeff Denham, both Republicans; and John Garamendi and Jim Costa, both Democrats.

On August 2, 2013, these four Congressmen sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell questioning whether there was an overestimation of the water that needed to be released for fish from Trinity Lake.

Conversely — fingers pointing in another direction — three Northern California Democrats with large environmentalist constituencies favored sending the water to the fish in Northern California. They were Reps. Jared Huffman, Mike Thompson and George Miller.

In rendering his decision to release water from Trinity Lake for the fish, Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill warned of the downstream impacts this could have on farmers in the Central Valley.  But he had to render a decision to uphold an inflexible law, the Endangered Species Act, which preempts state water laws. Put another way, in this case the judge’s fingers were tied because of the ESA.

Where?

So, amid all the finger-pointing, where did the farm water go? We’re in the early stages of the drought. But so far some conclusions can be drawn.

About 1,268,000 acre-feet of water combined from Lake Trinity and the San Joaquin Reservoir was spilled for fish restoration in 2012-13, resulting in a massive draw down of storage water that flowed to the ocean instead of being conserved and returned to the natural terrestrial water cycle.

Therein lies a major reason for a shortage of stored water for agriculture going in to a third consecutive year of a dry spell.

Once the reservoirs were drawn down, there could be no relief when the drought landed on Central Valley farms like a plague of Oklahoma Dust Bowl locusts.

Now there’s fresh evidence of this from a U.S. neighbor that doesn’t exactly have a history of smart governance. Walter Russell Mead has the details:

“Mexico’s Senate voted [Tuesday] 95 to 28 in favor of an historic energy reform bill last night, setting the stage for a massive turnaround of the country’s oil and gas production. The bill is now headed to the lower house, which is expected to pass it later this week.  The reform, if passed, will be a defining victory for President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has already made a name for himself as a reformer in his first year in office.

“But this is much more than a boost to his legacy; it’s a chance for Mexico to really take advantage of its resource bounty. Mexico has large reserves of conventional onshore and offshore oil and gas, and the world’s sixth and eighth largest shale gas and shale oil reserves, respectively. …

“The reforms will be especially beneficial for Mexican shale exploration. Fracking was so successful in the US because of our relatively simple geology—geology Mexico shares—and our deep pool of firms willing to compete with one another to develop the technology and take the risks on unproven techniques and reserves—something Mexico lacks. But that could change if this bill goes through. These changes could help the country realize the Pemex CEO’s dream of becoming the world’s ‘new Middle East.'”

Will CA join the ‘phenomenon’ or not?

Mead concludes that …

“Mexico is poised to join the US and Canada as new major players in the global oil and gas market, and if these reforms are successful, it will make the shale boom a truly North American phenomenon.”

But will California join in this “North American phenomenon” or not? Maybe not, given the dishonest media coverage of fracking.

From last month, here’s the latest L.A. Times editorial on fracking to not even mention that the Obama administration has repeatedly signed off on fracking’s safety, seeing it as just another heavy industry that can be made safe with proper regulation.

The latest Sac Bee editorial on fracking, which came in September, is not available for free online, but it too never even mentions that the Obama administration has repeatedly signed off on fracking’s safety.

The latest San Francisco Chronicle editorial on fracking also never even mentions that the Obama administration has repeatedly signed off on fracking’s safety. It’s from last month.

Only one editorial from a prominent liberal paper even hinted at the Obama administration’s views of fracking. It was the San Jose Mercury-News piece posted Sept. 15.

“Some environmentalists won’t be happy unless there is a complete ban on fracking or a moratorium until the environmental impact review is complete. But studies by the Environmental Protection Agency have not linked fracking by oil companies to groundwater contamination.”

Both edit page, reporters in on LAT’s anti-fracking agenda

Boy, such context would sure by valuable in all coverage of California and fracking, dontcha think? But so would the comments of U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at a May press conference, as reported by The New York Times.

“Anticipating criticism from environmental advocates, she said: ‘I know there are those who say fracking is dangerous and should be curtailed, full stop. That ignores the reality that it has been done for decades and has the potential for developing significant domestic resources and strengthening our economy and will be done for decades to come.’”

The Los Angeles Times also covered Jewell’s press conference. It didn’t mention Jewell’s strong support for fracking. Instead, it went to an oil-industry spokesman to make the claim that fracking is safe — not President Obama’s secretary of the interior.

So it’s not just the LAT editorial page with an agenda on fracking. It’s the newsroom, too.

Great, just great.