Measure Z foes claim sky will fall with yes vote.

In the midst of a Facebook debate about the so-called anti-fracking ballot initiative Measure Z (you know, the kind of debate where each side isn’t actually calling the other idiots, but it’s close enough) land use consultant and anti-Z standard bearer Maureen Wruck offered this weary response: “You don’t understand how an oil field works.”

Nor do most of us. I know how a gas pump works, though: Once every few months, I drive my aging, combustion-engine Mini Cooper to a local station, fill it up and then it sits in the driveway because if I have to drive anywhere, I steal my husband’s electric Leaf, powered by the solar system we installed a few years ago.

Nobody needs to understand how an oil field works to understand that, based on events in places like Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, no rational person wants hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to occur in Monterey County. Permanently poisoned aquifers, corrosive drinking water, flames shooting from faucets, human health impacts like hair loss and skin sores just from showering – real wrath-of-God stuff – has been documented in communities where exploration companies come in to frack oil – and natural gas-rich shale formations.

If all Measure Z proposed to do was ban fracking, that might be good enough for voters in Monterey County, even though energy is one of the three largest economic drivers. But there’s a line in the ballot language (it can be found online at the Monterey County Elections Department) that has set the energy industry back on its heels – while spending over $1 million to make sure Z is defeated.

That line is this: “The drilling of new oil and gas wells is prohibited on all lands within the county’s unincorporated areas.” Then there’s another line: Land uses in support of oil and gas wastewater injection and oil and gas wastewater impoundment are prohibited.

And that’s where knowledge of how an oil field works does help if you want to anticipate all the consequences of Measure Z. Today there is no fracking in Monterey County, but there is substantial oil and gas development. That’s what’s really in play, say the No on Z folks. You can’t adequately control the extraction of oil unless you can be flexible in the number of pumps, because oil exploration isn’t a single-pump game. Wells pressurize and depressurize and when one depressurizes, another has to come online – and it may occur that a new one is needed. In Monterey County, for every one barrel of oil that’s extracted, 10 barrels of water come up with it. And 2,400 acre-feet per year of that water is cleaned via reverse osmosis (meaning it’s put in a pond and “impounded” while being cleaned before percolating back into the ground).

In June, Camp Anti-Z (which includes Wruck as a paid consultant, along with spokesman David Armanasco and a handful of local attorneys including Jeff Gilles, funded by Chevron and oil-exploration company Aera), released its analysis of the measure. You can’t necessarily believe the rhetoric from either the pro or con side of this issue, but the industry report foretells wholesale economic collapse of the county if Z passes. Beyond the job losses predicted (732 immediate, up to 1,000 once fully enacted), and the tax revenue loss predicted ($35 million in Monterey County), there’s a section about the lawsuits the county will likely face if Z passes. The value of the San Ardo reserves is estimated at $890 million at the low end, up to $1.2 billion at the high end, and if production ceases, the owners of the land on which those wells sit might be inclined to sue to recover all that “taking” of personal property rights.

By their measure, the sky is falling. It’s not clear if that measure melds with reality.

My recommendation: Read the measure and go to local debates, but ignore the Facebook pages for both sides because they’re like the Wild West meets Flowers for Algernon. One debate that’s coming up: The League of Women Voters of Monterey County holds a lunch-and-learn about Measure Z, with speakers on both sides. The event will take place starting 11:30am, with lunch ($17) at noon and the presentation at 12:30pm on Wednesday, Sept. 16 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 490 Aguajito Road, Carmel.

MARY DUAN writes The Local Spin column for the Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan.