Love Rules-
How do I love thee let me count the ways? The sun, the moon, the stars, the water, the air, the forest and trees, the birds and the bees, fish in the sea. Home sweet home. I am in love with nature.
New York City residents gave their Mayor Bill de Blasio a Great Big Valentine for filing a lawsuit against 5 major oil companies. Maybe next year we will be able to do something like that. In the mean time we have some officials we need to rock their world because they are not doing their job we are not proud of them and that is just not o.k. We deserve better.
Driller in Oklahoma Explosion Has History of Deadly Accidents, Safety Violations and workers complaints go unheeded and 11 die because OSHA and regulatory agencies ignored complaints.
In Richmond California when Chevron ignored 3700 violations and DOGGR failed to act on the violations 15,000 people where sickened and hospitalized when the refinery exploded and sent toxic flumes in every direction for miles.
Chevron ignored a decade of warnings before Richmond refinery …
The Safety Board … said Chevron did not act upon six recommendations over 10 years to increase inspection and replace the line at its Richmond, California, refinery with upgraded pipe.
The oil industry in California is self regulated. That means any spills, accidents or rule violations that threaten their bottom line and profitability is automatically ignored and goes unreported. The oil industry has a history of lying and violating industry standards and practices. That’s why these things happen and innocent people are left unprotected and totally at the mercy of unscrupulous, careless, heartless, ruthless, antisocial, antibeing things that we created. Corporate beings are a figment of our greed and selfish behavior. This is not o.k. This is unacceptable. This has to change.
Oil industry has failed to comply with rules and regulations and just dares an understaffed, underfunded regulatory agency to catch them if they can. No respect for rules and regulations. Common courtesy. And it is really of little or no consequence if they are caught red handed because the penalty for violations is fixed into the cost of doing business and subsided by the American taxpayers. Oil doesn’t care that lives are ruined and destroyed nor do some elected officials we entrusted to keep us safe. The hardship, heartache, disruption of lives and livelihood could all be avoided if officials did their job and responded to and enforced violations and followed up on complaints filed by workers, whistleblowers and victims. It is our job to make sure they are doing their jobs.
What do you do when officials refuse to listen to their constituents? We want to know why our Board of Supervisors is allowing an undocumented oil operation to continue to dump toxic hazardous waste into the unincorporated areas of SLO County. A complaint has been filed with the EPA, DOGGR and Water Resource Control Board and petitions delivered to the Board of Supervisors to shut down the illegal wells in the Arroyo Grande Oil Fields. The complaints have been ignored.
The oil fields have never been certified a safe toxic waste disposal site according to the Underground Injection Control program. Arroyo Grande Oil Fields do not have a mandatory EPA registration # that certifies the toxic waste disposal site safe for 10,000 years or until the toxic ingredients are rendered inert whichever comes first.
The shut down is on our Board of Supervisors whose job it is to make sure the contractors are properly licensed and the site is an authorized and certified hazardous waste disposal site. Its simple. If it isn’t certified it doesn’t get a permit. It isn’t certified. It’s simple. No permit.
Our Board has for over 20 years been harboring, aiding and abetting illegal and unlawful activity. We have begged and pleaded with the Board to remove the threatening, abusive, invasive, assaulting element from our sacred place. This is not rocket science. Show us the documentation from the EPA that the Oil Field is a certified hazardous waste disposal site or shut the place down as promised by DOGGR and EPA. And just to be clear. An exemption of an aquifer is not a license to dispose of hazardous waste. One does not preclude the other. So to the Board of Supervisors I don’t know what you are waiting for but we are done waiting. Shut down the illegal operation at the Arroyo Grande Oil Field or we will revoke your license to represent us.
This is a classic example of failure of officials to do their job and to act on complaints. NOT o.k.
It is o.k. if we say NO to stinky, smelly, dirty, ugly, sickening, intrusive, abusive, unwelcomed toxic disposal in our backyard. Hundreds of municipalities across the United States have honored and respected the peoples choice to not have ticking time bombs in their backyard.
The Mayor of New York is suing 5 major Oil companies for damages caused by Hurricane Sandy. It’s a climate change thing and they are make their case. Kudos for New York. Our Attorney General has filed 21 lawsuits against President Trump for environmental violations. But will not enforce his own directive to shut down unlicensed wells. We have sent 5 complaints to Attorney General Becerra to shut down the illegal wells that failed to meet the Feb. 15, 2017 deadline. He has failed to recognize our concerns. Why? And then there are those like our Board of Supervisors who have decided to go rogue and ignore our objections, our complaints of abuse of power and assault on our lives and livelihood. This is NOT o.k.
And how do you say this is not o.k. in a tone and language our officials can understand? We are declaring our sacred love and commitment to our homes, our children and the next generations. We can and will make a legal declaration that is recognized and acknowledged in a court of law and where the abuse of power and assault by public officials is recognized, acknowledged and punished.
So that is what you do when officials don’t do their jobs. You let the courts do our talking for us in a language the officials can not ignore.
Do you want to see what happens when a community is summarily ignored by their elected officials and environmental agencies?
John Bolenbaugh of Kalamazoo Michigan is on a mission to prevent a deadly disaster that happened in their town from happening to anyone else. He has documented and answered the question what happens when officials don’t do their job? Would like to invite everyone to come and see a documentary called The Big Oil Whistleblower on Tuesday Feb. 20,2018 at the SLO Library at 7pm.
The Big Oil Whistleblower is going to tell us what to expect from an oil company if they get their hands on our land and permits to drill and local officials let them. All we have to do is listen, take what these good, honest hardworking, people are telling us to heart to prevent an inevitable disaster in our own backyard. These good people have nothing to gain by telling us their story and the truth and John is doing it at great risk to his own life and family.
They don’t have to share this with us but they care. They got screwed by the oil company, the government, the EPA, and all those government agencies that are suppose to be looking out for our safety health and well being. If they knew then what they know now this would be a whole different story. We don’t have to repeat their mistakes. We can take care of business BEFORE it becomes a disaster.
Here is an excerpt from the show.
“Only about 30% of the oil spills are reported because they just say it is being maintenance. They profit from the oil spills. They want the oil spills. For 5 years they knew there is a crack in it [pipeline] if they shut it down they would lose 8 million dollars a day so what they do is just squeeze out that revenue for 5 years until it does spill then that insurance company hires them to clean up their own mess…”
And honestly it is not like we haven’t heard it before by Josh Fox, Calvin Tillman, Ray Kemble, Native Americans. The tale of the oil industry in America is as ugly as it gets and it always ends in a disaster. Who are you going to believe? Come to the show and let’s make plans to deliver a petition or two. And deliver an ultimatum or three.
DOGGR_Headquarters@conservation.ca.gov Complaint form
Let the Attorney General know we know he can shut down those wells and we expect him to do it. Have contacted him 5 times. All the responses were a form letter giving us the bums rush. Making our case. Not o.k.
Attorney General
https://oag.ca.gov/contact/general-comment-question-or-complaint–form
And you can sign the MoveOn petition to the Attorney General and Board of Supervisors. This was already delivered to the Attorney General who summarily dismissed it. So we can do it again and it will be going to the Board of Supervisors as well. We are making our case that our elected officials don’t listen to us and that is not o.k. Ignoring us is NOT an option. Every refusal by our Board to ignore our complaints is satisfying a court prerequisite to prove we made the demand and it was ignored.
SHUT DOWN THOSE WELLS sign the petition
Same goes for the Water Boards – let them know we are not o.k. with their nonchalant attitude of implementation of directives.
I contacted Toxic Substances Control letting them know we have concerns about the undocumented dumping of toxic waste in our backyard. They got back to me and said this was all on DOGGR.
And you can give the Board of Supervisors one last official chance to do their job and shut down those illegal wells. No responds is a refusal to respond. Making our case.
John Peschong
Chair, 1st District Supervisor
(805) 781-4491
Here is a sample letter I wrote to all of the above.
Why aren’t you enforcing the Feb 15, 2017 shut down deadline? We want to know. The community of San Luis Obispo wants to know. Eleven of the 1650 wells were on that shut down deadline and we were relying on you to follow through and shut them down if they failed to meet the deadline. They failed to meet the deadline and you failed to enforce. We want to know why? We will read your responses at a public meeting and decide what our next step will be to insure our safety health and well being. To date over $15 billion dollars is due and owning the taxpayers of California in penalties. Whose responsibility is it to collect on those penalties? We want to know.
We want an answer by Feb 19, 2018 and no response from you by that date will be regarded as a refusal to answer and reported as such. It will be regarded as an intent to ignore and disregard our complaint with full knowledge that that is your intent.
An exemption of an aquifer is not a license to dump hazardous toxic waste in the unincorporated areas of San Luis Obispo. Any attempt to allow that activity will be regarded as a clear and present danger to our safety and well being and a breach of a sacred trust bestowed on our elected officials.
Thank you,
Come to the showing of the Big Oil Whistleblower on Tuesday Feb. 20 at the SLO Public Library at 7pm. We will invite a response from the officials we have contacted. We will let you know what they did or did not say.
This film is about Enbridge oil. Seven years later and Enbridge is still in the news and Kalamazoo is still trying to get officials to listen. We are not going to let this happen to us. Flint Michigan still doesn’t have clean water. Puerto Rico is still struggling because officials are not listening. We are vowing that the Arroyo Grande Oil Fields will not be permitted by our Board of Supervisors until it is certified by the EPA as a Class I waste disposal site. And we are going to be going into drought mode again. And this time we are going to make sure that the Arroyo Grande Oil Fields are complying with emergency drought water allocations. They got away with it last time but this time is going to be different. That’s a promise.
The oil industry lies.
The oil industry has a long history of pushing forward recklessly in the pursuit of profit and then claiming ignorance when things go wrong, resulting in “unique” disasters.
After the deadly Bakken oil train disaster at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, the industry assured the public that Bakken oil was safe and no different than other oils. That was wrong. That was a lie.
When the Sanchi was initially on fire The Washington Post reported that the Chinese government said that much of the oil “would probably evaporate in hours.” That was wrong. That was a lie.
And the oil industry continues to claim that diluted bitumen floats in water and is no different to clean up than other oils — despite the scientific and real world evidence showing this isn’t true.
Oil lies. We absolutely must dump this crazy ass fossil fuel mentality and any SLO county supervisors that don’t see a problem with partnering up with unlicensed, untrustworthy contractors and wants to protect jobs that get people killed and destroys the entire landscape of this county. They are out of here by hook or crook.
Peschong must recuse himself because Phillips 66 has a pipeline at the field and Sentinel is a paid member of the Western States Petroleum Association a former employer of Peschong.
And,
We are partnering up with Food and Water Watch people who are looking to promote, aid and assist local grassroots organizations anyway they can. One way is getting signatures on petitions that they will send out to their network. A call to action to get people to a rally, BOS meeting , they are there. Have sent them the petitions. They are on it.
O.k. dear lovers of this place we call home and visitors that love coming here just one last thing for today.
SLO Clean Water 