Fracking has quickly engulfed Californian politics and economic discussions in the state. One side supports the method of extracting oil and gas using hydraulic fracturing to break through the Earth’s crust to reach shale deposits beneath the surface. The other side argues the method is short-sighted and will cost more in terms of environmental degradation, water contamination, health risks and other costs than the energy benefits promise.

The epicenter of the state's fracking battle is the Monterey region, some two hours south of San Francisco, where an expanse of 1,750 square miles holds an estimated 15.4 billion barrels of oil. Proponents of fracking here argue the energy boost will help the state meet its growing energy needs. According to the industry advocate Energy From Shale <<http://www.energyfromshale.org/hydraulic-fracturing/bakken-shale-gas>>, fracking “supplies that increase to our country’s energy security and improves our ability to generate electricity, heat homes and power vehicles for generations to come.”

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The group continues to argue that “hydraulic fracturing has also boosted local economies—generating royalty payments to property owners, providing tax revenues to the government and creating much-needed high-paying American jobs. Engineering and surveying, construction, hospitality, equipment manufacturing and environmental permitting are just some of the professions experiencing the positive ripple effects of increased oil and natural gas shale development.”

Many in the industry have argued that California’s shale oil deposits could dwarf the Bakken Shale formation of North Dakota, a state that's used fracking to deliver some 20 million barrels of oil monthly -- making it the country’s second-highest producer after Texas.

Government officials in North Dakota tout fracking and drilling as the cause of the state's $3.8 billion surplus and an unemployment rate of just 3.2 percent, the lowest in the nation. California, although no official numbers have been published, would surpass North Dakota and rival Texas in oil production if it moved into large-scale fracking.

At present, hydraulic fracturing operations are underway in nine California counties, and many worry it’s just the beginning. While opposition to fracking in Wyoming, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania is gaining momentum, critics of the process in California -- and Monterey in particular -- are just starting to mount a visible opposition in the form of business owners and residents, who fear their natural landscape, environmental and community health are in peril.

And there is ample evidence to support their belief. According to Earth Justice, “benzene and other highly toxic chemicals contaminating underground drinking water sources” is just one direct result of fracking.

Matthew Williams, a local bar owner, believes residents need to work together to stop fracking before it truly commences in the state.

“This is our future, our land, and if we let the fracking go on, this could be destroyed and that is a travesty,” he said, as others perched in attention at the bar, eager to listen and debate.

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“We are home and this is a beautiful country, so why would we want to go and destroy all this for some quick money while our water and land is killed off," he said, while those around him nodded. "There are other solutions.”

Walking through Monterey and talking with locals, it seemed that the vast majority disapproved of the fracking concept as a whole. They have listened to the environmental scientists who have spoken, with facts and evidence, about the destructive impacts fracking has on the natural landscape.

Based on what's already happening in North Dakota, fracking in California will send additional large amounts of methane and other air pollutants into the atmosphere, further undermining efforts to head off climate change. Environmental groups also cite numerous instances across the country where groundwater supplies have been contaminated by nearby fracking wells.

With water wars already budding across the nation's most populous state, fracking will not help. Drilling one horizontal fracking well can use more than 5 million gallons. Underground water sources stand not only to be hazardously polluted from the operations, but greatly reduced in size.

In Monterey and the San Francisco/Bay Area region, environmental groups are working overtime to raise awareness about the fracking threat that is already at the state's doorstep. For Earth Justice, the future of energy lies not in greater oil consumption and exploration, but in the vast array of alternative and renewable energy resources already at our disposal.

“The champions of natural gas promote it as a clean energy alternative, but natural gas development leaves extensive environmental degradation in its wake,” Earth Justice states in its petition against fracking. “From well site preparation to drilling and production, and finally to the disposal of wastes, the industry pollutes soil, air and water, and leaves scars on the landscape that last for decades.”

“I just don’t get it. We keep going in circles," said Tom Dorn, an 84-year-old oil guru-turned-environmental activist. "I was an oil man at Exxon for many years and what they do is keep lying. They want to make people believe it is okay for us to consume the way we do and now they try to say fracking is clean. We here see it differently.

“This is our land. Let’s not destroy it.”

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