California is the third largest oil
producing state in the country a lot of
people don’t realize that when they
think of California they think of
vineyards and Hollywood but we’ve been
living with oil and gas production since
the late 19th century Kern County is
really the epicenter of oil production
in California where about 80 percent of
our state’s oil is produced the Central
Valley were half of Kern County lies
produces 25 percent of America’s food
oil and agriculture have always had a
tenuous relationship here I make my
living on the surface they make their
living below Keith Gardner and his
business partner Holly King have farmed
in Kern County for 22 years right
alongside Big Oil you have two owners on
the same piece of property one who owns
the minerals and the farmer who owns the
surface a land man from an oil company
will call or come out to your office and
say hey the trucks are lined up we’re
gonna be in there tomorrow we want to
drill here and here well immediately you
get into a fight you say no you’re not
yes we are no you’re not well we’re
gonna sue you and I’m just a little guy
you know I can’t stand to be sued by an
oil company so a lot of times you just
acquiesce they go ahead you know I can’t
fight you we do have an obligation to
allow them to access their minerals and
we’re okay with that we’re not okay with
we can do anything we want on your
surface because we’re the big guys like
Earl tenant in West Virginia they have
seen substantial damage on their farm we
noticed the overall health of the trees
was not good we started testing the
water and we found out that we had a lot
of high salts a lot of high chlorides
and those are just the death of of
almond trees we took out about 8,000
trees we suspected that billions barrels
of salt water was getting injected into
our freshwater zone when you start
taking our trees out it’s a problem
[Music]
producing state in the country a lot of
people don’t realize that when they
think of California they think of
vineyards and Hollywood but we’ve been
living with oil and gas production since
the late 19th century Kern County is
really the epicenter of oil production
in California where about 80 percent of
our state’s oil is produced the Central
Valley were half of Kern County lies
produces 25 percent of America’s food
oil and agriculture have always had a
tenuous relationship here I make my
living on the surface they make their
living below Keith Gardner and his
business partner Holly King have farmed
in Kern County for 22 years right
alongside Big Oil you have two owners on
the same piece of property one who owns
the minerals and the farmer who owns the
surface a land man from an oil company
will call or come out to your office and
say hey the trucks are lined up we’re
gonna be in there tomorrow we want to
drill here and here well immediately you
get into a fight you say no you’re not
yes we are no you’re not well we’re
gonna sue you and I’m just a little guy
you know I can’t stand to be sued by an
oil company so a lot of times you just
acquiesce they go ahead you know I can’t
fight you we do have an obligation to
allow them to access their minerals and
we’re okay with that we’re not okay with
we can do anything we want on your
surface because we’re the big guys like
Earl tenant in West Virginia they have
seen substantial damage on their farm we
noticed the overall health of the trees
was not good we started testing the
water and we found out that we had a lot
of high salts a lot of high chlorides
and those are just the death of of
almond trees we took out about 8,000
trees we suspected that billions barrels
of salt water was getting injected into
our freshwater zone when you start
taking our trees out it’s a problem
[Music]
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