Oil wastewater is being used to grow crops in Central California

[Ichingcarpenter]

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) - If you've lived in Kern County long enough, you've heard the old saying, whether it's from a farmer, on a billboard, or from a politician: "Kern County farmers feed the world."

What a lot of people don't know is that some of the food we sell on a global market - sometimes even marketed as "organic" - is grown using diluted oil wastewater.

"It's hot. It's stinking. There's oil floating on it," said Tom Frantz, a small farmer and environmentalist. "Nobody should be eating that food."

David Ansolabehere, the general manager of the Cawelo Water District, says they have been buying half a million barrels of water from Chevron every day for about 20 years.

Then they dilute it with fresh groundwater.


http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/Oil-wastewater-used-on-Kern-County-crops-298949201.html

[haikugal]

1. Damn...

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. We Are Eating Fracking & Drilling Waste

We Are Eating Fracking & Drilling Waste

Unconventional drilling creates a huge amount of waste, some of which is being sprayed onto farmer’s fields. A 2005 report from New Zealand stated cows grazing on “dump farms” have elevated levels of hydrocarbons. “Cows are allowed to graze on land with high levels of hydrocarbons without any punishment and their food products are allowed to go to market without government testing,” a Green Party MP said last year. It is happening in Canada too. The field above is northwest of Calgary. Former energy consultant Jessica Ernst said, “We are eating the waste from drilling & fracking.”


“About 1.2 barrels of solid waste are created with each foot drilled, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Simply to reach the approximate 8,000-foot depth of a Barnett Shale gas well, drilling creates more than 9,600 barrels, or 403,200 gallons, of solid waste. That does not take into account any horizontal drilling performed after reaching that depth. For the 14,000 Barnett Shale wells drilled so far, the waste would cover the entire city of Fort Worth in more than an inch of drill cuttings, slurry, heavy metals and other toxic compounds.” – Denton Record-Chronicle


When she was a consultant, in the conventional oil sector, Ernst observed drilling waste being spread on the leases and access roads in northeast BC.

“This waste is spread onto the muskeg, so eventually it all gets into the water,” said Ernst.

When I worked on the coalbed methane by Encana, in southeast British Columbia, the waste was so expensive to deal with. They did tests. Their waste was killing the fish, and yet they still dumped the waste directly into the waterway there. That’s a prime fishing area, so again people are drinking and eating the waste.


http://cleantechnica.com/2015/05/07/eating-fracking-drilling-waste/

[haikugal]

4. I'm speechless...truly...

Losing any hope of making a better world.

[TexasTowelie]

3. But it is enriched with nutrients!

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. The California report – ‘Toxic Stew: What’s in Fracking Wastewater’

The report – ‘Toxic Stew: What’s in Fracking Wastewater’ – stemmed from the state’s 2013 disclosure law which mandates the comprehensive testing and public release of the chemicals in drilling wastewater. The oil and gas industry has fought hard – with cover from government regulators like the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California’s own Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources – to obfuscate and conceal what it injects into the Earth.

“Petroleum chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive elements, plus high levels of dissolved solids, are among the pollutants found in fracking wastewater samples tested under the new disclosure program,” the Environmental Working Group wrote.

“They include benzene, chromium-6, lead and arsenic – all listed under California’s Proposition 65 as causes of cancer or reproductive harm. Nearly every one of the 293 samples tested contained benzene at levels ranging from twice to more than 7,000 times the state drinking water standard. The wastewater also carried, on average, thousands of times more radioactive radium than the state’s public health goals consider safe, as well as elevated levels of potentially harmful ions such as nitrate and chloride.”


State officials have said there is “no evidence to date that California aquifers currently used for drinking water have been contaminated by fracking chemicals,” the Environmental Working Group wrote.

http://rt.com/usa/240145-california-fracking-wastewater-chemicals/

[madamvlb]

6. Sickening.

[Enthusiast]

7. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

Not!

[Omaha Steve]

8. Organic???

K&R!

[Nihil]

9. This has been going on - and getting worse - for TWENTY years!

> David Ansolabehere, the general manager of the Cawelo Water District,
> says they have been buying half a million barrels of water from Chevron
> every day for about 20 years.



Seriously?

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. Drill baby drill in the Arctic because

they still have to get rid of the wastewater that oil drilling produces and its a long way home.