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Brentwood’s Sundown Exploration Inc. has been drilling for crude oil since 2018 on Deer Valley Highway south of Antioch. The agency is partnering with Indiana-based Powerdrive Oil and Gasoline on proposed exploratory oil drilling in close by unincorporated Brentwood. The positioning is positioned a few half-mile south of the place Heidorn Ranch and Outdated Sand Creek roads intersect. (Employees photograph/Judith Prieve)
ANTIOCH — There are not any working pure fuel or oil wells in Antioch, and the Metropolis Council needs it to remain that means.
The council has banned future pure fuel and oil drilling, producing and exploratory operations within the metropolis.
The Metropolis Council unanimously agreed on Tuesday to amend its municipal code, eradicating language that permitted makes use of within the metropolis’s southern “heavy industrial” zone and in a chosen portion of the close by Sand Creek Focus Space.
The newest drilling applicant, Sundown Exploration, withdrew its accomplished request for a allow in Could of 2020, focusing as an alternative on close by land outdoors the town limits.
“What this might do is that this would offer for no oil and fuel drilling inside the metropolis, with no obvious rapid affect on operations right now,” Metropolis Lawyer Thomas Smith informed the council.
Sundown Exploration has been drilling for crude oil since 2018 not distant on Deer Valley Highway a mile south of Antioch and operates two wells however has permits for 5. It has additionally partnered with Indiana-based Powerdrive Oil and Gasoline on proposed exploratory oil drilling in close by unincorporated Brentwood a few mile away from present wells however that has stalled with Contra Costa County, which is now requiring further environmental evaluate.
To the south, Alameda County banned fracking in 2016, and it revoked a conditional use allow for its working wells, spelling the tip of oil drilling in July of 2018. However Contra Costa County has greater than 15 producing oil and fuel wells, largely in unincorporated areas, and 656 non-producing ones.
Environmentalists and residents have been preventing towards these wells and spoke up in favor of the proposed Antioch ordinance that may forestall oil drilling within the metropolis.
“I wish to thanks all in your sturdy management and for setting a extremely essential instance for all of the East County cities which are constructed on high of or are near the previous Brentwood oil and fuel subject,” Shoshana Wechsler of Sunflower Alliance, a pro-renewable-energy environmental group, informed the council. “As intensive medical analysis reveals us, human well being and hydrocarbons simply don’t combine, and fossil gas extraction wherever on this planet makes a livable future Unattainable.”
Harry Thurston, an Antioch resident who requested the everlasting ban on oil and fuel drilling, stated the motion would assist shield the well being and welfare of Antioch residents.
“That is the correct motion to take right now of worldwide environmental disaster,” he stated. “This motion will ship a message that an East County metropolis is opposed to grease and fuel drilling, extraction and transport inside its metropolis limits and regionally inside Contra Costa County.”
Drilling opponent Dr. Jeffrey Mann, an orthopedic surgeon and co-founder of clean-air activist group 350 Contra Costa, stated the scientific group has studied the well being results of residing close to oil and fuel drilling from the air air pollution generated and decided it might result in continual lung illness, bronchial asthma, coronary heart illness, most cancers and dementia amongst different points.
“It's crucial that we as soon as once more hearken to the science on this matter of the well being harms from oil and fuel drilling simply as we've in navigating the pandemic, the COVID pandemic,” he stated. “And because the metropolis council, you'll be able to assist the frontline employees in Antioch shield the well being of the residents of Antioch by voting for a ban on oil and fuel drilling and exploration.”
Stella Lin, a neighborhood highschool pupil, stated she was upset that the county had allowed drilling in unincorporated Brentwood.
“All my classmates and I are apprehensive concerning the future,” she stated. “And we all know it’s crucial that cities should transfer away from fossil fuels to be able to have any hope of restoring a affluent future.”
Councilwoman Monica Wilson moved to approve the ordinance however earlier than the vote, Mayor Professional Tem Mike Barbanica famous that there was no opposition current although he acquired suggestions after the council’s earlier dialogue on the matter.
“I simply wished to know that anyone that would have been affected by this, that owns land that might be affected, hasn’t proven up. … So, to me, that speaks volumes in assist of it.”
Reached after the assembly, Bob Nunn of Sundown Exploration stated he withdrew his firm’s utility in 2020 as a result of he already had an utility for a allow with the county to the south in unincorporated Brentwood.
“There was no no have to pursue each and so we simply selected the one within the county as a result of it’s additional away from improvement and remoted and may’t be seen, and I didn’t have to do each,” he stated. “I've loads of legitimate permits throughout the town limits within the county that I can make the most of for all my future drilling wants if that's the case desired.”
Nunn, who had permits to conduct exploratory drilling in Antioch and got here up dry and stopped in 2007, stated the town already had a de facto moratorium as a result of nobody wished to drill for oil there.
He additionally criticized those that railed towards oil and fuel drilling “with out understanding the impacts of what they’re making an attempt to do.”
“All people that went to Antioch to complain about shutting down oil and fuel exploration is utilizing the product and telling me to cease … these individuals didn’t take note of Econ. 101. If you wish to cease (drilling), demand much less (oil and fuel), and we provide much less.”