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Page added on July 20, 2014
California Halts Fracking Waste Injections; Fears “Danger To Life, Health, & Natural Resources”
Seven independent oil companies have been ordered to halt state-approved wastewater injection work this week, according to The Bakersfied Californian, The cessation of fracking is out of concern they may be contaminating Kern County drinking water. As ProPublica reports, The state’s Division of Oil and Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) is warning that they may be injecting their waste into aquifers that could be a source of drinking water, and stating that their waste disposal “poses danger to life, health, property, and natural resources.”
As The Bakersfield Californian reports,
Seven independent oil companies have been ordered to halt state-approved wastewater injection work starting noon Monday out of concern they may be contaminating Kern County drinking water.
Emergency orders issued Wednesday by the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources apply to 11 disposal wells east and northeast of Bakersfield. About 100 water wells are located within a mile radius of the disposal wells.
Oil and water officials say the wells may have injected “produced water” — the toxic and sometimes radioactive liquid that comes up during oil production — and possibly injected fracking fluid at relatively shallow depths that contain relatively low salinity, oil-free water suitable for drinking and irrigation.
State officials said they have found no evidence the underground injections, some approved by DOGGR as long ago as the 1970s and others very recently, have ever contaminated drinking or irrigation water. Pollution has not been ruled out, however, as regulators conduct site inspections and await test results and other information from the companies.
DOGGR’s action has come amid a year-old crackdown on industry practices for disposing of oil field fluids.
…
“We need to make sure that the water that they’re going after, if it’s potable now, let’s make sure that it stays that way and we’re not injecting produced water,” said Jason Marshall, chief deputy director of DOGGR’s parent agency, the state Department of Conservation.
The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board issued orders Wednesday concurrent with DOGGR’s action. Its letters to the same seven companies set deadlines for turning over groundwater samples, analytical data and technical reports.
“Our orders are focused on the (geological) formation where the injection happened and looking at the quality of that formation water,” said Jonathan Bishop, chief deputy director for the State Water Resources Board.
Fortunately, he said, it appears a “large proportion” of the wells’ injection zones are at a much deeper depth than the nearby water wells.
While that’s “good news,” he said, the state lacks data on many of the surrounding private wells. Inspectors are trying to gather such information now, he added.
But some of the injection wells at issue seem to be within 500 feet of the depth of the water wells.
“That is of more concern to us,” he said.
Read more here from ProPublica…
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This comes on the heels of earthquake concerns we reported previously and NY’s fracking setback.
9 Comments on "California Halts Fracking Waste Injections; Fears “Danger To Life, Health, & Natural Resources”"
rockman on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 7:36 am
A fairly well balanced article IMHO. But they still couldn’t resist hyping the “fraking waste injection” angle even though I suspect 99%+ of the injection fluids aren’t from frac jobs but primarily salt water. Same thing with the foolish “radioactive liquid” tag. That liquid would be salt water carrying “NORM”… Normally Occurring Radioactive Material. All portions of the earth contain NORM including the dirt in your back yard. There areas in Texas that do contain very high levels of commercial radioactive ores which are produced via solution mining. And they are almost always located in the fresh water aquifer. Needless to say a bad spot for someone water well.
But it’s always a good idea to test for problems. The state of Texas requires periodic testing of all injection wells. But that’s rather redundant. Land owners with fresh water wells near a company’s disposal well typically test their water with much greater scrutiny. Besides insuring the safety of their drinking water it would also be a big payday if they can document damage from the disposal well. So obviously companies try really hard to avoid such problems. And they don’t need to be “good stewards” of the environment…they are very motivated to not have to cough up hundreds of $thousands for such mistakes. Despite what some folks think the Texas Rail Road Commission and our courts typically weigh heavily in favor of the land owner.
But accidents do happen. And they are usually discovered with big remediation bills to follow. Many of the oil patch hands live in rural areas and drink well water. They pay very close attention to any disposal wells close to them. My 14 yo daughter drills well water every day but there’s no disposal wells near her. But I have the water tested yearly. My concern is for chemical pollution from agricultural activity. In her area that’s the usual source of water problems if there are any.
Perk Earl on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 8:25 am
Rockman, I’m having trouble understanding your response to the information in the article. Are you saying toxic chemicals from fracking a) sometimes or b) never transfer into drinking water aquifers?
Plantagenet on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 10:54 am
Hopefully these kind of laws will encourage a transition to water-free fracking methods, so that injection of fracking fluids no longer is necessary.
rockman on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 2:16 pm
Earl – The nastiest certainly can (and have) made it into the ground water systems. But if you notice what the article actually says:”State officials said they have found no evidence the underground injections…have ever contaminated drinking or irrigation water.” Not that periodic testing isn’t always a good idea but I suspect there’s a healthy chunk of PR behind this gov’t move. With the public nervous about the potential of a lot of Monterey Shale frac’ng they wanted to make a show of it. I suspect the state officials aren’t expecting the water samples to reveal any problems. I might do it if I were a state official trying to calm folks down so that lots of taxes from future frac’d wells might help my budget deficit. But I’m a naturally suspicious person anyway. LOL.
This is the same damn mistake folks in PA were focused on when I repeated told some of them they were looking at the wrong place for a problem. Almost all the cases of the nastiest getting into the water shed came from the same source. And it wasn’t wells being frac’d or the fluids going down disposal wells. It was trucks hauling the nastiest from the frac’d wells to the disposal sites that were illegally dumping the nastiest or the same being done by the disposal companies. In Texas we call truckers making illegal dumps “midnight haulers” because they typically do it after midnight. I’ve personally helped bust two of them. Most have gotten busted with the help of other oil patch since a lot of us are on the roads late at night.
As far as disposal companies cheating last year they busted a disposal company that had been dumping the nastiest down the sewer system for years. Another big source was several local municipals water treatment centers that were charging companies to take the nastiest and then ran them thru their systems which did nothing to neutralize them. While it was illegal for a private company to do this the towns were exempt. At least until both PA and NY passed laws banning the practice.
The problem of frac fluids harming the environment won’t be properly addressed if they are looking t the mot common source.
P – No new law was passed. It’s just a temporary stoppage until the samples are tested. If the samples are clean (probably a good bet) the injections will continue.
Plantagenet on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 4:15 pm
Thanks, R. Nonetheless, its would just be a good idea for them to end the injections of waste water and shift to water-free fracking methods.
California is in a drought—it doesn’t make any sense to pollute and then inject millions and millions of gallons of water into the ground, when that water is desperately needed to grow food by California’s ag biz.
Makati1 on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 9:12 pm
Question for rockman. Is the ‘water free fraking’ more costly? I.E. less profitable?
I am not an expert, but I know I would not want any chemicals injected anywhere within 10 miles of my well. Water travels, and 10 miles is not too far. Salt water is just as deadly as any chemical. Try drinking it for a few days and no regular water. Not to mention that it kills plants, making it unsafe for irrigation.
Perk Earl on Mon, 21st Jul 2014 2:18 am
Thanks for getting back to me, Rockman.
rockman on Mon, 21st Jul 2014 7:28 am
M – Yes…more expensive and yet to proven to be as efficient. There’s actually been big improvements in filtering the nasties and reclaiming 95% of the water to use to frac the next well. Still expensive but the fracs work the same.
And while frac fluids are nasty they still represent just a tiny fraction of potentially damaging fluids being sent down disposal wells in this country every day. And I’m not just talking about the BILLIONS of gallons of nastier fluids from other industrial activity. I’ve searched for those numbers and it’s not something those other industries or the gov’t care to advertise to the public.
The big damaging potential from oil patch disposal is salt water and not frac fluids. I can’t find one report of proven frac fluid contamination in Texas. But there have been hundreds of documented case of salt water contamination. Most happened during the early bad old days…we do a much better job now.
There’s nothing wrong with CA focusing on safe frac fluid disposal but over the decades hundreds of BILLIONS of salt water and other nasties have been inject under CA when the public wasn’t paying attention to the activity.
Makati1 on Mon, 21st Jul 2014 9:25 pm
rockman, yes, I am aware of that other pollution. Farmers also pollute the ground water by over fertilizing. Not to mention industrial chemicals still finding their way into the water systems. Even the drugs we take are polluting rivers and the oceans.
But fraking is becoming so wide spread, into farm lands and under residential areas that I was concerned. Most of my family lives in Central Pennsylvania. It doesn’t seem logical to deliberately pollute the areas we need.
Thank you for your, as usual, informative and factual answer.