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<h1 class="">You Thought California's Drought Couldn't Get Any Worse? Enter Fracking.</h1>
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<div id="node-header" class=""><div id="node-header-data" class=""><p class="">—By <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/tom-philpott" rel="author">Tom Philpott</a></p><div id="dateline">| Fri Oct. 10, 2014 2:22 PM EDT</div></div><div class=""><br></div></div><div class=""><img src="http://www.motherjones.com/files/imagecache/top-of-content-main/shutterstock_175228745.jpg" alt="" title="" class="" height="354" width="630"><span class=""> Pumpjacks extract oil from an oilfield in Kern County, in California's ag-heavy Central Valley. </span> <span class=""> <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-175228745/stock-photo-kern-county-california-november-pumpjacks-extract-oil-from-an-oilfield-in-kern-county.html?src=YF0zeko-XyQ3h7QSJMh0Iw-1-1">Christopher Halloran </a>/Shutterstock</span> </div><p>I have a great idea. Let's take one of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/magazine/californias-central-valley-land-of-a-billion-vegetables.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">globe's most important agricultural regions</a>, one with <a href="http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10978" target="_blank">severe water constraints</a> and a <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california/California-Drought-Threatens-Nations-Most-Productive-Farming-Valley-273339641.html" target="_blank">fast-dropping water table</a>. And let's set up shop there with a highly <a href="http://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/new-study-hydraulic-fracturing-faces-growing-competition-for-water-supplies-in-water-stressed-regions" target="_blank">water-intensive form of fossil fuel extraction</a>, one that throws off copious amounts of <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es5028184" target="_blank">toxic wastewater</a>. Nothing could possibly go wrong ... right? <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/fracking-10-06-2014.html" target="_blank">Well... </a></p>
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<p>Almost 3 billion gallons of oil industry wastewater have been
illegally dumped into central California aquifers that supply drinking
water and farming irrigation, according to state documents obtained by
the Center for Biological Diversity. The wastewater entered the aquifers
through at least <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/california_fracking/pdfs/20140915_State_Board_UIC_well_list_Category_1a.pdf">nine injection disposal wells</a> used by the oil industry to dispose of waste contaminated with fracking fluids and other pollutants.</p>
<p>The documents also reveal that Central Valley Water Board <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/california_fracking/pdfs/UIC_WaterWell_Results_8-7-14.xlsx">testing</a> found high levels of arsenic, thallium and nitrates<em>—</em>contaminants sometimes found in oil industry wastewater<em>—</em>in water-supply wells near these waste-disposal operations.</p>
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