MOSCOW, August 18 (RIA Novosti) - California blames Big Oil’s hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for depleting the state’s limited water supply amid its worst drought in recent history, the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center reported.
“The verdict is clear: fracking and clean, potable groundwater are not compatible. We cannot continue to risk our increasingly fragile water supply. Gov. Brown must show his leadership in protecting our water supply by enacting an immediate moratorium on fracking in California,” the community news website quoted Los Angeles’ city council member Paul Koretz as saying during a meeting at city hall on August 13.
A report from the California Department of Conservation titled “Monthly Oil and Gas Production and Injection Report” from February 2014, found that extreme oil and gas production such as fracking, acidizing and cyclic steam injections, uses about 2.14 million gallons of water daily.
The report claims that real figures are likely much higher due to unreported drilling activities throughout California as well as lower water recycling rates.
“No other water user completely removes millions of gallons of water from the water cycle like the oil industry does,” Tatiana Gaur, staff attorney at LA Waterkeeper was quoted as saying by the media center.
“Unconventional oil and gas extraction methods, such as fracking and acidizing, produce contaminated water which cannot be used again, and the water and chemicals that remain in the ground could pollute our aquifers. In Southern California, we rely on groundwater for much of our drinking water, and that has only become more necessary during the drought,” she added.
According to a UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences study released July 15, the state is currently experiencing its worst drought in decades due to the unregulated use of groundwater reserves.
Oil companies add to the problem of poor groundwater management by using substantial amounts of water during fracking, a process that permanently pollutes the water with carcinogenic chemicals, preventing it from reentering California’s fragile water cycle.
The UC Davis study found that the drought is the third most severe on record and responsible for the greatest water loss ever seen in California agriculture, totaling a startling one-third loss of river water for Central Valley farms.
The fear of fracking fluids poisoning California’s drinking water aquifers caused state officials to order an emergency shutdown of 11 fracking sites in July while an additional well was shut down on July 31, the media center reported.
According to the study, should California’s drought continue for another two years, groundwater reserves would continue to be used to replace surface water losses. Pumping ability will also slowly decrease, while costs and losses will inevitably increase. California is the only state in the United States without a framework for groundwater management, the study confirmed.
