Fracking workshop set for Tuesday

A workshop on the oil and natural gas production method of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, will be held noon to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Hilton Garden Inn, 1000 Aguajito Road.

The workshop is open to the public and is being held by the California Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.

The purpose of the workshop is to get input on a “discussion draft” of state regulations that the agency hopes to have in place within about 18 months. The draft is available at CA fracking documentshttp://www.conservation.ca.gov.

The group Progressive Democrats of America will hold a protest outside the Hilton from 4 to 6 p.m.

I am planning to attend at least part of this meeting tomorrow, and busy educating myself before hand. I have read the proposed regs, the background info, the FAQs sheet, and the general information post. The first three are in PDF, so they can be downloaded and saved in iBooks for marking and highlighting. I would suggest that anyone interested in the potential impact, if any, of HF in the Salinas Valley, near Jolon, on the water we drink here in Big Sur, get as familiar as possible. I am finding high school chemistry, only a vague self-education on geology, little hydrology other than to know how it affects the highway and how much my spring produces, to be wholly inadequate to understand this issue. But I am trying.