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OROVILLE >> No new oil or gas wells have been drilled in Butte County in more than two decades, and nobody has ever sought permission to conduct a "fracking" operation, but if anybody ever does ask it looks like the answer will be "no." Tuesday the Board of Supervisors voted to have county staff prepare an ordinance that bans fracking.

Documents prepared by county staff for Tuesday's meeting described fracking as "a common term for hydraulic fracturing that is a technique of well stimulation used to increase petroleum production,"

At request from the county's Water Commission, the supervisors were asked to adopt and ordinance that would require a conditional use permit before a fracking operation could take place within county jurisdiction. In introducing the proposal, Paul Gosselin, director of the county Department of Water and Resource Conservation, said the procedure "has raised controversy and concern about environmental impacts, water, and seismic activity."

In spots around Butte County, particularly in south Chico and south Oroville, ecological hazards threaten health and safety. Some residents know; some don’t. Polluters tend not to advertise when they’re breaking the law, and residual toxins from decades past represent some of the biggest risks.

According to Robyn DiFalco, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council, “a clean and healthy environment versus dirty, unhealthy, polluted environments really have a lot connected with geography.” Wealthy neighborhoods don’t have to deal with these problems because residents there tend to “squawk very loud if dirty industrial sites were in their backyard—and they would prevent them from going in, and choose not to live near those sites.” Lower-income individuals don’t always “have those opportunities to speak out and prevent those sites from going in,” she continued, and neighborhoods with less expensive housing often are located “near these sites that are visually less attractive and have these health problems that their families may be affected by. “So, to be able to see a geographic dispersion of contamination sites, environmental and public health issues, is very telling,” DiFalco continued. “That’s why it’s so important to give visibility to that—that’s why it’s so important to have the EJSCREEN tool and the one that California does … otherwise, a lot of these communities are out of sight, out of mind.”

CHICO — Code Blue will be taking a road trip to the delta. People who follow water issues will meet at 8 a.m. Saturday at the Park and Ride on Highway 32 to carpool to the estuary. The trip is hosted by the Butte Environmental Council. For more information: http://www.becnet.org/code-blue-2013-water-outreach-campaign The trip is free, but the organizers would like people to sign up for planning purposes, nanibay@hotmail.com or (530) 891-6424.

Also Tuesday, the City Council will hold a public hearing on the Draft Housing Element Update and consider authorization to submit it to the state for review and comment. The housing element is one of seven required elements in a general plan, and must be updated every five to eight years.

The element has six basic components: a housing needs assessment, a site inventory, a constraints analysis, housing programs, quantified objectives and public participation. The proposed actions are designed to meet various housing needs, including affordability for low-income residents, production of affordable housing for all income groups, and improvement and investment in existing residential neighborhoods.

Also Tuesday, the council will consider a resolution approving a one-year license to the Butte Environmental Council to operate a temporary community garden at West Eighth Avenue and Highway 32. The vacant, one-acre city-owned site is eventually planned for development as a fire station, but an interim use of a garden with no permanent structures would not interfere with that plan, according to city staff.

OROVILLE — A group of citizens don't like fracking and they don't want fracking in Butte County. Their goal is to have Butte County voters decide whether the practice will be allowed. Members of Citizens Action Network made their point Wednesday at a meeting of the Water Commission. They took turns at the podium to ask commissioners to put fracking on a future agenda.

Carol Perkins of the Butte Environmental Council said there are 260 natural gas wells that have "been pumped dry and are now plugged." "As natural gas prices increase, could these wells be reinvigorated without proper environmental review?" Perkins asked. "Little is known and there isn't much oversight," she said.

Oroville >> After a relatively brief public hearing Tuesday, the Butte County Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that would ban the storage or disposal of fracking waste within the county.The vote regarding the waste generated by injecting fluids into the ground to stimulate oil and natural gas production was 4-1.

The ordinance defines key fracking terms, creates a land-use category about storing or disposing fracking waste or byproduct and then bans such storage and disposal within the county.

Six of the seven members of the public that commented on the proposal openly supported the ordinance. Members of the Butte Environmental Council and Frack-Free Butte County spoke.

Oroville >> The Butte County Board of Supervisors has postponed action on possibly rezoning residential property in Chico’s Bell-Muir neighborhood.The board was considering whether to keep the 33 parcels north of Bell Road and west of Muir Avenue at very low density residential with a 2½-acre minimum lots or revert it back to 5-acre rural residential. The properties lie on the agricultural side of the green line, the 33-year-old boundary between urban development and farm use in the Chico area. The neighborhood may be viewed as a buffer because it is between ag land and residential properties with a 1-acre minimum size.

Robyn DiFalco of the Butte Environmental Council said very low density residential zoning is a development zoning. “It’s a direct contradiction of the principles of the green line,” DiFalco said. She raised concerns about water quality in the area and indicated smaller lots increases the probability of the land being annexed into Chico.

Oroville >> People are wearing raincoats and watching water run down the gutter. However, the recent rains do not mean the end of California’s four-year drought.Butte County’s water resources scientist Christina Buck said the local rainfall is still only at about 89 percent of average for this time of year. That’s based on rain through last week and beginning Oct. 1, which is the start of the “water year.”

Carol Perkins, a water advocate for Butte Environmental Council, told the members of the Water Commission that she hopes when those groundwater jurisdictions are established, they will consider watersheds, rather than existing water use boundaries. Some examples of watersheds are Butte Creek, Big Chico Creek and the Feather River, she said. “This might give groundwater dependent farmers a more prominent voice in this process,” Perkins said.“As it stands right now, our only voice is the county for those areas.”

Oroville >> The Butte County Planning Commission has recommended changes to how close new houses may get to orchards and vineyards within residentially zoned areas.

The commission voted 4-1 last week to approve clarifying that a 300-foot buffer between agriculture and houses applies to agriculturally zoned lands. In residential areas, the commission backed a minimum 25-foot setback between houses and orchards or vineyards, although the policy calls for houses to located as far away as practicable.

Robin DiFalco of the Butte Environmental Council said she generally supported the final revisions. She backed having public hearings and making setbacks be as great as is practicable, which may reduce land use conflicts and was good land use policy.

At the end of 2009, after a long-fought battle with concerned citizens and a divided Chico City Council, Walmart’s plans to expand its Forest Avenue store were denied. The ultimate decision, reached by a liberal-majority council, was that the environmental impacts outweighed any potential benefits of the project. The company was told it must wait at least a year before bringing the idea back to the city. Now, six years later, the plan to expand Chico’s Walmart is back on the table. It appears it’s not the only one, either. Plans for a new 197,000-square-foot Supercenter in Oroville that were first submitted in 2006 are finally making headway. That project could break ground by the end of 2015. And there are rumblings of progress on plans for building a Walmart in Paradise—those also had their beginnings in the middle of the 2000s.

“As an organization, we feel there are many aspects of a super Walmart that conflict with the goals of protecting the environment and supporting local economies, overall, in a broad sense,” said Robyn DiFalco, executive director of local eco-advocacy group Butte Environmental Council, adding that the group had not yet taken a position on the expansion.

The public event will be 9 a.m. Saturday in lower Bidwell Park. Volunteers from Chico State, Butte Environmental Council and PG&E will be planting 60 valley oaks and red buds. Meet at Sycamore Street and Woodland Avenue.

But such assurances are not enough for Oroville resident and local environmental activist Bill Bynum. Through his work with the Butte Environmental Council, he’s raised concerns about the possible health effects of two large fires at the Koppers site, one in 1963 and another in 1987.

The commissioners also heard grant request presentations from a variety of local organizations and events. Grant requests were heard from kids fishing events in Chico, Oroville, Gridley, and two kids events in Paradise. Additional applicants included the Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife foundation, Butte Environmental Council, Chico State Research Foundation, North Valley Community Foundation, Gaines & Associates, Paradise Bow Hunters, and Troop 2 Boy Scouts. Final grant approvals and amounts will be given out at the commission’s Feb. 6 meeting in Chico.