But blasting old, often damaged wells with steam had an unintended side effect: surface expressions. It did little good. However, Chevron's responses have "contained, but not prevented" additional expressions of oil on the surface of the ground, the state says. Cleanup of an oil spill that started May 10 continues in a Kern County canyon. But, the presentation concluded, there was little impetus for oil companies to change their ways: “The economic benefit of increased oil … production from steam injection into shallow diatomite … has been, and will continue to be motivation for operators.”, Employees familiar with the spills pushed for stricter regulation. Since those averages are currently only recorded through June 2020, revenue calculations for 2020 averaged oil barrel prices for the first six months of the year. No photos of the Sandy Creek spills or the Cymric ravine flooded with oil were shown. An analysis of production records by The Desert Sun and ProPublica found that over the past 20 years, 14 of those sites have spilled a combined 20 million gallons of oil, worth more than $19 million. The number of new spills was halved over the next few years, he said. Dubbed 36W, it has since gushed more than 2.1 million gallons of oil and wastewater, according to Chevron reports filed to the state, and is being piped into large concrete culverts. She said company geologists had told her as long as they steamed in diatomite in California, Indonesia and elsewhere, surface expressions would occur. That’s five times the maximum radius California spells out in its regulations, though CalGEM can impose larger ones if a surface expression continues. Jerry Brown. The spills not only threatened the surface, they argued, but the water table — and the people and crops that rely on it. They were greeted by a geyser of steam as tall as a telephone pole shooting out of the hole. And across some of its largest oil fields, companies have for decades turned spills into profits, garnering millions of dollars from surface expressions that can foul sensitive habitats and endanger workers, an investigation by The Desert Sun and ProPublica has found. Over 18 months, the Lakeview Gusher spilled 395 million gallons, creating a pool so deep and wide that men rowed boats across it. Half a dozen spills and a massive well blowout had occurred there since 1999. State biologists documented sections that are home to breeding western toads, cliff swallows, California quail, kildeer and other birds passing through on long migrations. Left, the Lakeview Gusher in 1910. Alberta also instituted strict protocols for nearby steaming. That included helping companies relocate water that interfered with oil, both freshwater supplies and the briny waste that gushes from wells along with crude. CalGEM could not provide a full accounting of how much oil has spilled from surface expressions, even though the 2019 regulations explicitly require that oil companies report production numbers. But when winter rains fall, the creek flows. The Governor's Office of Emergency Services estimated that 30% of fluid released at the spills is oil; Chevron collected and transported it to a processing facility. County officials signed off on the construction after the fact. Along with being a global leader on addressing climate change, California is the seventh-largest producer of oil in the nation. Some are small, “low-energy seeps.” Some persist for months despite attempts to contain them. Known for its scenic beaches, the area is also home to nearly a dozen oil fields. But a close review of the state’s new rules shows they contain several large loopholes that keep oil from surface expressions flowing — the result of years of lobbying and pushback by the energy industry. The penalties include $900,000 for failure to prevent a surface expression and $1,832,991 for "failure to comply with transport requirements for oil and to conduct operations in accord with good oilfield practice.". Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, worried about enforcement of groundwater laws in California oil fields, had been conducting a probe of how CalGEM regulated underground injection. In Taft, where he grew up and raised his family, he was a soft-spoken but beloved coach of high school and community sports teams. A 2015 PowerPoint presentation they prepared, obtained by The Desert Sun and ProPublica, stated that some of the diatomite formations might have been permanently altered by steam fracking, meaning spills there might never stop. Tantalized by visible natural “seeps,” companies large and small drilled wells across the state, hoping to hit paydirt. Citing economic hardship, the industry asked the Newsom administration to scale back CalGEM’s expansion. Although the spills were still running, they were considered contained; the oil was confined to open-air pools. There hasn't been a surface expression there since. Jerry Brown fired Miller in the fall of 2011 as he sought to revive California’s sluggish economy. In the document outlining the fines, state authorities said an oiled bird was found at the site on Aug. 14 and was taken to a wildlife care center where it had to be euthanized. Gavin Newsom to the site, officials with the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM — the main state agency overseeing the petroleum industry — ordered Chevron to stop the flow. “I talk to the governor every single day,” he said, “and so when my voice rings in his ear, your voice rings in his ear.”. Asked if it was considering changes to the regulations, CalGEM said “it is premature to say what new rules, if any, will result from current surface expressions or the scientific review.”. The technique is called “cyclic steaming.”. In response, CalGEM exempted from the ban what it called “low energy seeps,” defined, in part, as slower spills that are not hot and are permanently contained. In the Chevron spills, Marshall noted that the company allowed oil from the four spills to run downhill. The creek, which in the 1800s ran miles from the Temblor Mountains to the then-vast Buena Vista Lake, is now dry most of the year. That tops the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez, the infamous tanker that ran aground in Alaska in 1989. Like underground tea kettles blowing their tops, seeps of gas, mud, oil and rock erupted in a dozen oil fields. CalGEM staff in the Bakersfield office conducted many in-depth inspections of spill sites and wrote reports documenting them for superiors. “It’s completely obscene that oil companies can cause an oil spill and then profit off it,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental nonprofit organization. According to a review of state and local records, the exemption appears to cover more than 70 older spills that are still revenue generators. Scrivner showed photos of oil spills in Brazilian rainforests and a river in Colombia. The Western States Petroleum Association, the industry trade group representing major companies like Chevron, pressed to nix the spill prohibition altogether and just preserve the longtime practice of containment. But hundreds of them have occurred, records show. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Ten to 15% of that was oil, officials said. On the morning of June 21, 2011, Robert “Dave” Taylor and two Chevron colleagues went to the freshly graded site in response to a report of steam coming from the ground. As the spills continued, agency leaders in 2015 realized there was another long-standing issue: no formal training for the geologists, engineers and supervisors involved in permitting and oversight. Don Drysdale, a spokesman for California's Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, told CNN that officials had a slightly different preliminary estimate of the oil spill than Chevron did.