It’s no small task to get Riley Jacobsen angry. He’s owned and run a small grocery store in Monterrey, Calif., for three decades. He takes his calm seriously. But today is different. Bring up fracking in the area and he gets frustrated, his hand gestures unusual for this 59-year-old who has lived here his entire life. For him, fracking is personal.
“This is part of who we are as a small community. We know each other, at least most of us. We have regulars and people who just like to come in, grab a coffee and chat in the morning before they go off to work,” he said, replacing the empty coffee containers with fresh brewed Joe.
Jacobsen and his fellow residents in Monterrey are not pleased. They are angry and frustrated. For them, the debate over fracking is not really a debate. This is their home and they want to keep it clean and healthy.
Fracking, most residents spoken to here said, is simply a “bad idea” and one that would drastically change the environment around their proud city, home to some 30,000 people and one of the most diverse landscapes in the state.
Energy.gov’s statement on the environment as it relates to fracking is simple: “It is the Subcommittee’s judgment that if action is not taken to reduce the environmental impact accompanying the very considerable expansion of shale gas production expected across the country – perhaps as many as 100,000 wells over the next several decades – there is a real risk of serious environmental consequences and a loss of public confidence that could delay or stop this activity.”
The public's confidence here in Monterrey seems already to be losing whatever confidence it had, with the likes of Jacobsen and others beginning to view fracking as a threat to their society and the natural surroundings they have grown accustomed to.
Just two streets away from Jacobsen’s market stands Isaac Hopkins, a 22-year-old Monterrey native who just finished his undergraduate degree at UC Irvine. Hopkins has an engineering degree. He has returned home to look for work, but although the oil companies are hiring he wants nothing to do with them.
“I see all the adverts and just think about how they are trying to fool us into thinking fracking and exploration is a boost for our economy,” he began. There is some truth to that, he admitted, at least short-term.
“Certainly, look at North Dakota and their fracking industry. The companies and government involved boast the lowest unemployment in the country and that’s all good, but what about the destructive nature that comes with fracking in the first place? It’s massive.”
He listed the myriad concerns that fracking has provoked, from chemicals seeping into the water supplies of local communities, to the massive methane and greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere which exacerbate climate change.
So Hopkins has decided to look elsewhere for work and hopes to land a job in the budding eco-science industry. For him, like Jacobsen and many other residents here, keeping fracking out of Monterrey is personal.
“I don’t want to come back home to visit my family in five, ten years and see the fears we are all thinking about right now come true. It would be sad if this happens,” he said.
Monterrey residents are pushing local officials to change their acceptance of fracking, which is currently planned in a massive 1,400 square mile area that dwarfs any other shale deposit in America. Opponents say fossil fuels are no longer the answer for growing energy needs, and that people must look elsewhere for solutions.
“I have been reading a lot of what Earth Justice is saying on the issue and I support their statements,” continued Hopkins. “They have talked about the pollution inherent in fossil fuels and fracking and what it could do to our water systems, which is why I want to go into alternative energy production like solar and wind power.”
There are real fears -- with ample evidence -- that fracking leads to poisoned water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, industrial disasters, earthquakes and gas explosions. All this has been documented by Earth Justice, who have made it their mission to inform the California public about what a future with fracking could bring.
Jeremy Howard, a former consultant for the EPA, is now a self-described “roaming activist” working with numerous research groups to detail the environmental degradation of land. He has been in California for months, looking into the fracking proposals for the Monterrey Shale Deposit.
“I think it is my duty to put my skills to better uses than scapegoating companies through the EPA,” he said, pointing at future “fracking developments” in the area. For him, too, the battle is personal. Howard says he fought against efforts to promote fracking as a clean alternative to traditional drilling, but came up against government roadblocks.
Jacobsen, Hopkins and many residents in Monterrey couldn’t agree more, which is why they are escalating their opposition among local and state government officials, encouraging them to push back against what has thus far been a steady string of support for the oil and gas companies.
For the majestic landscape that is the Monterrey area, fracking could quickly spell the end, said Hopkins, who has turned his attention -- when he’s not looking for work -- to fighting for what he believes in: his town.
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