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Agriculture Fracking and wastewater disposal wells (npr.org)

Published on October 14th, 2014 | by Sandy Dechert

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Fracking Wastewater Spoils California Drinking, Farm Supplies

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October 14th, 2014 by  

Central California, already painfully stressed by the worst drought in 50 years (which the US Drought Monitor designates as “extreme or exceptional drought,” the most serious category on the agency’s five-level scale), has another problem with its water supply. Aquifers that supply drinking and irrigation water have recently had to swallow almost 3 billion gallons of tainted wastewater from nearby hydraulic fracturing.

Fracking and wastewater disposal wells (npr.org)

Ideal well scenario (npr.org)

Fracking involves blasting huge volumes—140,000 to 150,000 gallons of pressurized water, sand, and often unspecified “proprietary” chemicals per day—into layers of rock far underground. Oil and wastewater then come to the surface, and companies separate the two and reinject the water component into designated disposal wells. The problem occurs when they reinject it where it can enter aquifers containing pure water. Experts estimate that California has an estimated 2,583 wastewater injection wells throughout the state, 1,552 of them currently active.

The state’s Water Board confirmed beyond doubt that in Kern County, several oil companies used at least nine of 11 injection wells to dispose of waste contaminated with fracking fluids and other pollutants, including high levels of arsenic, thallium, and nitrates, into high-quality water protected under both federal and more tolerant state laws. Thallium is a component of rat poison. Arsenic, toxic in itself, can also compromise the immune system and cause cancer. The state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources shut down the 11 Kern County oil field injection wells and began scrutinizing almost 100 others in July for posing a “danger to life, health, property, and natural resources.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, a national, nonprofit conservation organization, obtained documents relating to the illegal dumping. The state Water Board had written the US Environmental Protection Agency that the Central Valley Regional Water Board had discovered the violations. The state also said that 19 more injection wells may have also contaminated sensitive, protected aquifers. More than 100 water wells in northeast and east Bakersfield may also have been contaminated.

The Central Valley board has only been able to test eight water wells since June, but four turned out to contain toxic chemicals in illegal amounts. Experts estimate that California has an estimated 2,583 wastewater injection wells throughout the state, 1,552 of them currently active.

Palla Farms LLC, a 92-year-old farming company in Kern County, sued four oil producers in late September for neglect, failure to provide fluid treatment plans, and contaminating groundwater the farms use for irrigating cherry and almond trees.

Says Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity:

Clean water is one of California’s most crucial resources, and these documents make it clear that state regulators have utterly failed to protect our water from oil industry pollution. Much more testing is needed to gauge the full extent of water pollution and the threat to public health. But Governor Brown should move quickly to halt fracking to ward off a surge in oil industry wastewater that California simply isn’t prepared to dispose of safely.

Environmental activists in the Golden State are calling on Governor Jerry Brown to put a stop to water-intensive fracking for its role in aggravating the drought. (See this interactive map from the Washington Post for a look at the California water problem.)

Concerns other than contamination and the drought threat to California’s precious water supply include permanent changes to the quality of life throughout California and the oil industry’s contribution to climate change.

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About the Author

covers environmental, health, renewable and conventional energy, and climate change news. She's worked for groundbreaking environmental consultants and a Fortune 100 health care firm, writes two top-level blogs on Examiner.com, ranked #2 on ONPP's 2011 Top 50 blogs on Women's Health, and attributes her modest success to an "indelible habit of poking around to satisfy my own curiosity."


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  • Joseph Dubeau

    We have the technology to clean this waste water.
    The oil companies could easy sale the clean water to farmers. (a win win for both)
    Why are we allowing oil companies to dump their waste into the ground?

    • Rational Ron

      It cost more to clean up the water than you can make selling it. When fresh water is produced along with the oil the fresh water is given to the water districts free of charge. Both Chevron and Oxy are net water providers as a result of this practice.

      • Joseph Dubeau

        “The field’s owner, Chevron, sells millions of gallons every day to a local water district that distributes it to farmers growing almonds, pistachios, citrus fruits and other crops.”

        Source Here

  • Dragon

    This makes me so angry. My dad always leans towards supporting these companies and asks me if I would support Fracking if it were done safely? No! Even ignoring the fact that all fracking contributes to climate change, all of these companies refuse to operate safely. To a reasonable person, it seems logical that they wouldn’t dump illegally or not bother to seal the walls of their wells because they should know that when they’re discovered, they will face fines, lawsuits, or an angry public that manages to pressure our governor to finally halt all fracking. But over and over we find these companies are NOT reasonable, or at least not moral or ethical. They care about nothing besides profit. If it’s cheaper to pay a fine then to case all their wells properly, they choose to risk the fine. If it’s cheaper to buy and bribe politicians and limit well inspections so nobody can prove they did anything wrong in court, they do that. If it’s cheaper to buy the media so nobody beyond the locals finds out about people getting sick, they do that. Really, the only thing that can turn their profits into losses is a fracking ban, and I guess they figure they’ve paid enough bribes that that will never happen.

    We need to stop these fracking frackers. http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/ is a good place to start.

  • Larry

    All disposal wells should be required to be grouted so whatever they are injecting is contained in the zone designated for disposal. I seriously doubt any of these wells are grouted so it is no surprise to me that water bearing formations are being contaminated

    • Matt

      The reason Bush, let them keep the chemicals a trade secret was for this very reason to make it harder to track contamination back to the fracking site. Also it does not matter if the contamination is in the liquid that is injected, or coming “naturally” with the waste from the well. If the oil company injects it back into the ground they should be held responsible for the water they pollute. Who is going to pay for the new water purification machines needed to clean the water back up? Or for the corps lost because they should not be eaten now.
      Yes sir-ee, Coal, oil, and gas are the cheapest fuels you can find. Please ignore the pollution behind the curtain.

  • davidlamb

    Several questions the author did not answer well above:

    1. How did the aquifer become contaminated? Was it because the reinjection wells were faulty (i.e. cracks in the casing)? Was it because the reinjection wells were not designed properly (i.e. not deep enough)?

    2. Which oil companies were sued?

    3. What water is being used for fracking? Is it recycled water from the oil production (i.e., no actual impact on drought water, but re-use of other water that is not surface-discharge quality)?

    4. What water was being reinjected? Was it fracking water, or the actual oil-produced water? (Most wells in CA produce between 1 and 15 times the amount of water compared to the amount of oil — it is that water that is being reinjected, not the “fracking” water. “Fracking” gets blamed for a lot that is not related at all to “Fracking”. This article doesn’t make it clear which water was contaminating the aquifer.) In fact, if the author does his math, the water from “fracking” alone (150,000 gallons per well, 3 billion gallons), means that the oil companies would have to have drilled 21,000 wells just in the 92,000 acres. That seems unlikely to me. Therefore, the author irresponsibly blames “fracking” for the problems, when that is only a small fraction of the amount of water from the production of oil.

    5. Is there specific lab data sets that can be referenced to qualify the statement “The state’s Water Board confirmed beyond doubt that in Kern County, several oil companies used at least nine of 11 injection wells…” Instead the author talks to the “Center for Biological Diversity” which may or may not have any credibility. Since there is no data or science in the article, I conclude it as almost no credibility, but as a lazy political article. I probably spent more time asking these questions as the author did writing it. I’m not saying the article isn’t true, but there is nothing in it to back up either Palla’s claims or how to solve the problem. “Stop Fracking” is the lazy argument that serves a political agenda. Assessing the issue for these 9 reinjection wells is the better solution on how to avoid it in the future without shutting down the jobs and energy required to run the state/country.

    • Jim Smith

      silly you. of course no oil companies will be sued. We have taxpayers to foot the clean up bills.

      • davidlamb

        All sarcasm aside, you bring up an interesting question. For what were the “oil producers” sued? Clean up? Replacement of Contaminated Water? Loss of crops? What happened to the almond crops? Did they absorb the chemicals and have to be scrapped? Is the food safe to eat? So many questions left wanting from this article…

        • Offgridman

          “So many questions left wanting from this article….”
          Exactly, but it isn’t the fault of this article, but the entire fracking process itself.
          Companies given a waiver of oversite by the EPA, that are not required to disclose what chemicals they are using in the process, nor what is disposed of.
          God bless president Bush and his administration, it almost makes one wish for the actual existence of a vengeful deity so that Bush and the others will have to pay for the damage done to our environment and society in the name of the almighty dollar.

          • davidlamb

            You should scientifically educate yourself about the oil productiong process in CA before posting, instead of depending on politically-based sheets for your information.

          • Offgridman

            I don’t have to count on “politically based sheets” for my information. The scientific reports released by the EPA and US geological association are quite clear about the damage that fracking has caused in all of the states not just California. And as for the harm caused by Bush and his administration it has been long enough for the freedom of information requests and the records released by Edward Snowden to make that quite obvious.

  • fee

    So what effect will this have on produce coming from California in the long run,if all these chemicals are contaminating ground water, thus leaching into land?

    • pam95650

      I would be more concerned about the drinking water.

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