[CRNMC] nearly 3 billion gals of frack water dumped in CA acquifers

[edward Oberweiser]

 You Thought California's Drought Couldn't Get Any Worse? Enter Fracking.

—By Tom Philpott <http://www.motherjones.com/authors/tom-philpott>
| Fri Oct. 10, 2014 2:22 PM EDT

Pumpjacks extract oil from an oilfield in Kern County, in California's
ag-heavy Central Valley.  Christopher Halloran
<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>
/Shutterstock

I have a great idea. Let's take one of the globe's most important
agricultural regions
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/magazine/californias-central-valley-land-of-a-billion-vegetables.html?pagewanted=all>,
one with severe water constraints
<http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10978> and a
fast-dropping
water table
<http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california/California-Drought-Threatens-Nations-Most-Productive-Farming-Valley-273339641.html>.
And let's set up shop there with a highly water-intensive form of fossil
fuel extraction
<http://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/new-study-hydraulic-fracturing-faces-growing-competition-for-water-supplies-in-water-stressed-regions>,
one that throws off copious amounts of toxic wastewater
<http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es5028184>. Nothing could possibly go
wrong ... right? Well...
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/fracking-10-06-2014.html>

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 nine
injection disposal wells
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/california_fracking/pdfs/20140915_State_Board_UIC_well_list_Category_1a.pdf>
used by the oil industry to dispose of waste contaminated with fracking
fluids and other pollutants.

The documents also reveal that Central Valley Water Board testing
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/california_fracking/pdfs/UIC_WaterWell_Results_8-7-14.xlsx>
found high levels of arsenic, thallium and nitrates*—*contaminants
sometimes found in oil industry wastewater*—*in water-supply wells near
these waste-disposal operations.
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