Yeah, Great Idea: CA Oil Lobby Group Wants To Strip Groundwater Protections From 1,500 Square Miles
A prominent oil and gas lobbying group seeks to strip environmental protections from groundwater sources designated by the state for agricultural use and which may grow increasingly important to California’s water-scarce future, according to a memo obtained through a records request. The proposal, which hasn’t been publicly announced, suggests removing protections for groundwater reserves underneath 1,500 square surface miles in western Kern County, where the upper groundwater zone alone can extend down thousands of feet. That region, near communities like McKittrick, Taft and Maricopa, is home to intensive oil drilling.
Under the proposed change, companies could have an easier time maintaining petroleum-tainted water in existing open-air ponds, which contaminate groundwater reserves. (One barrel of produced oil results in 16 barrels of water tainted by petroleum.)
This method of disposal is so toxic that the water board updated its permitting process to be more stringent after environmentalists called attention to it. There are more than 900 active, inactive, or closed ponds in California, almost all in Kern County. Over 200 more are in the process of closing.
The proposal could have wider implications; if successful, experts say, it could strengthen the oil industry’s ability to lay claim to groundwater reserves that had previously been designated for farm irrigation or even drinking water.
Amid a worsening drought, it also highlights another California-specific way the oil industry impacts the climate (in addition to being the top stationary emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the state): polluting aquifers with potential future use. Much of the industry now disposes of wastewater by injecting it underground rather than storing it in ponds, but even this method has been shown to contaminate groundwater.
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https://capitalandmain.com/california-oil-lobby-seeks-to-strip-environmental-protections-for-groundwater-amid-drought
