Oil Worker’s Death Renews Debate on Safety of Extraction Method
Chevron was fined $350 after an employee at a Kern County field where high-pressure steam is injected into the ground was sucked underground and boiled to death last year.
By Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times
5:50 PM PDT, April 14, 2012
SACRAMENTO — California’s largest oil company failed to warn employees of the dangers in an oil field where a worker was sucked underground and boiled to death last year, state authorities found — and then they fined the firm $350.
The small regulatory penalty, levied after a first investigation cleared Chevron, has angered labor leaders and reignited a debate over the risks of the extraction technique that led to the worker’s death. The method, in which a rush of steam heats the ground and loosens oil deposits, yields much of California’s crude.
