Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on May 3, 2015
California Crops raised with oil field water
Here in California’s thirsty farm belt, where pumpjacks nod amid neat rows of crops, it’s a proposition that seems to make sense: using treated oil field wastewater to irrigate crops.
Oil giant Chevron recycles 21 million gallons of that water each day and sells it to farmers who use it on about 45,000 acres of crops, about 10% of Kern County’s farmland.
State and local officials praise the 2-decade-old program as a national model for coping with the region’s water shortages. As California’s four-year drought lingers and authorities scramble to conserve every drop, agricultural officials have said that more companies are seeking permits to begin similar programs. The heightened interest in recycling oil field wastewater has raised concern over the adequacy of safety measures in place to prevent contamination from toxic oil production chemicals.
Until now, government authorities have only required limited testing of recycled irrigation water, checking for naturally occurring toxins such as salts and arsenic, using decades-old monitoring standards. They haven’t screened for the range of chemicals used in modern oil production.
No one knows whether nuts, citrus or other crops grown with the recycled oil field water have been contaminated. Farmers may test crops for pests or disease, but they don’t check for water-borne chemicals. Instead, they rely on oversight by state and local water authorities. But experts say that testing of both the water and the produce should be expanded.
Last month, the Central Valley water authority, which regulates the water recycling program, notified all oil producers of new, broader testing requirements and ordered the companies to begin checking for chemicals covered under California’s new fracking disclosure regulations. The law, which legislators approved last year, requires oil companies to tell the state which chemicals they use in oil-extraction processes. The water authority gave producers until June 15 to report their results.
“We need to make sure we fully understand what goes into the wastewater,” said Clay Rodgers, assistant executive officer of the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board.
One environmental group has tested the irrigation water for oil field chemicals. Over the last two years, Scott Smith, chief scientist for the advocacy group Water Defense, collected samples of the treated irrigation water that the Cawelo Water District buys from Chevron. Laboratory analysis of those samples found compounds that are toxic to humans, including acetone and methylene chloride — powerful industrial solvents — along with oil.
Water Defense, founded by actor Mark Ruffalo in 2010, works to promote access to clean water by testing local supplies and documenting contamination.
Sarah Oktay, a water testing expert and director of the Nantucket field station of the University of Massachusetts Boston, reviewed Smith’s methods and the laboratory analysis of the water he sampled.
“I wouldn’t necessarily panic, but I would certainly think I would rather not have that,” she said, referring to the chemicals identified in the water samples. “My next step would be most likely to look and make sure the crop is healthy.”
State Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) is sponsoring legislation that would require expanded testing of water produced in oil operations. The Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, is already facing lawmakers’ ire after the recent discovery that about 2,500 oil wastewater injection wells were allowed to operate in aquifers that, under federal standards, contain clean water.
Pavley said it is “obviously unacceptable” that oil contaminants are found in irrigation water. “Anyone would be extremely concerned.”
Chevron and the water district say that the water is safe for use on crops, citing the fact that they are complying with testing requirements under the wastewater discharge permit issued by the Central Valley water authority.
David Ansolabehere, general manager of the Cawelo Water District, reviewed Smith’s results. He said the sampling methods gathered too many solids and not enough liquid for testing. Smith uses a sampling method that gathers water and particles over a longer period of time, from deeper levels, than traditional water testing techniques. That method, Ansolabehere said, casts doubt on the test results.
Ansolabehere said Chevron and the water district, in an abundance of caution, would contract with a third party to test for the broader array of chemicals that is now required by the water board.
“Protection of people and the environment is a core value for Chevron, and we take all necessary steps to ensure the protection of our water resources,” Cameron Van Ast, a company spokesman, said in an emailed statement.
In the Kern County program, Chevron’s leftover water is mixed with walnut shells, a process the company says extracts excess oil. The water then flows to a series of treatment ponds. The treated water is launched into an eight-mile canal to the Cawelo Water District, where it is sometimes further diluted with fresh water. The water supplies 90 Kern County farmers with about half their annual irrigation water.
The program is a good deal for oil companies, which view the water as an expensive nuisance. And it’s a bargain for the water districts. Ansolabehere said the cooperative pays Chevron about $30 an acre-foot for the wastewater, about half of open-market rates.
Jonathan Bishop, chief deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board, said that monitoring oil field activities has been a “low priority” in recent years. He said the onus for disclosure and testing rests on the discharger, in this case Chevron.
In some instances, oil companies have sought permission to reduce the frequency of the tests, which are expensive, because they consistently show the water to be in compliance with regulations. The local water board has the discretion to grant those requests, he said.
“It’s a balancing act,” Bishop said. “We look at the cost of monitoring to assess risk associated with the discharge.”
But Bishop said the water used for irrigation is safe as long as the company and the water district follow the rules of the permit.
The Central Valley water board is responsible for regulating the water recycling program and requires Chevron to collect samples and send them to a third-party lab for analysis.
Smith, the Water Defense scientist, has consulted for the Environmental Protection Agency and other government offices on more than 50 oil spills and spent two years studying the oil wastewater used for irrigation in Kern County.
He traveled the eight-mile Cawelo canal, taking samples of the water as it moved from Chevron’s oil fields through the irrigation canals to farmers’ fields. He said he gathered samples only from areas that were publicly accessible. He took samples from 10 points, collecting water from a number of depths at each site through a process that he said is more comprehensive than the sampling state and local authorities require.
The samples Smith collected contained acetone and methylene chloride, solvents used to degrease equipment or soften thick crude oil, at concentrations higher than he said he had seen at oil spill disaster sites. The water also contained C20 and C34, hydrocarbons found in oil, according to ALS Environmental, the lab that analyzed Smith’s samples.
Methylene chloride and acetone are used as solvents in many industrial settings. Methylene chloride is classified as a potential carcinogen.
One sample of the recycled Cawelo irrigation water, for example, registered methylene chloride as high as 56 parts per billion. Smith said that was nearly four times the amount of methylene chloride registered when he tested oil-fouled river at the 2013 ExxonMobil tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Ark. That spill was declared a federal disaster, spurred evacuations and resulted in a $2.7-million fine for the company.
Chevron told The Times it does not use acetone or methylene chloride in its oil extraction process. The company would not disclose the fluids used in drilling or well maintenance.
Mark Smith, a board member of the Cawelo Water District who grows pistachios and citrus using treated water from Chevron, said he had “never heard a word” about contamination from the oil production process and is satisfied that the water testing is adequate.
“As long as they’re treating the water to the point where it’s allowed by whatever agency governs the quality of water, I think it would be OK,” said Glenn Fankhauser, assistant director of the Kern County Department of Agriculture and Measurement Standards.
Blake Sanden, an agriculture extension agent and irrigation water expert with UC Davis, said “everyone smells the petrochemicals in the irrigation water” in the Cawelo district. But he said local farmers trust that organisms in the soil remove toxins or impurities in water.
“When I talk to growers, and they smell the oil field crap in that water, they assume the soil is taking care of this,” Sanden said.
Microorganisms in soils can consume and process some impurities, Sanden said, but it’s not clear whether oil field waste is making its way into the roots or leaves of irrigated plants, and then into the food chain.
It’s unlikely that petrochemicals will show up in an almond, for example, he added, “But can they make it into the flesh of an orange or grape? It’s possible. A lot of this stuff has not been studied in a field setting or for commercial food uptake.”
Carl K. Winter at UC Davis, who studies the detection of pesticides and naturally occurring toxins in foods, said some plants can readily absorb toxins without transferring them to the leaves or the flesh of their fruit.
Still, he said, “it’s difficult to say anything for sure because we don’t know what chemicals are in the water.”
Some chemists say that the key to effective testing is to cast a broad net that includes all chemicals used in oil production.
“As an environmental health scientist, this is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” said Seth B.C. Shonkoff, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley and one of the researchers analyzing hydraulic fracturing for the state Legislature. “You can’t find what you don’t look for.”
20 Comments on "California Crops raised with oil field water"
dissident on Sun, 3rd May 2015 7:50 pm
So I am getting carcinogens in my food from this “brilliant” idea. I think a boycott of California farm produce is in order.
BobInget on Sun, 3rd May 2015 9:26 pm
I’m more concerned about the soil becoming contaminated over time. All irrigation water
can make soil too salty to grow crops.
Most fruit tree crops have marvelous filtrations systems of their own. Out-house run-off is one thing, heavy metals another.
Not to worry bob. scientists will engineer
new varieties.
Plantagenet on Sun, 3rd May 2015 9:41 pm
Thanks Gov. Jerry Brown.
First you exempt oil drilling from having to make any reductions of water use because of the drought—then you and your fellow Ds approve the use of oil wastewater on food crops.
You are quite a piece of work, Jerry Brown.
DMyers on Sun, 3rd May 2015 10:06 pm
They appear to be disposing of toxic waste by dumping it on farm land and then patting themselves on the back for being so “green”.
Interesting how we continue to come up against this information barrier. We don’t really know what chemicals are in the solution, because the companies won’t reveal that information. They won’t reveal it, and don’t have to, because it is part of their “proprietary blend” of chemicals used in the fracking process.
So, if you can label a process as proprietary, in order to retain a meritorious claim on its scientifically discovered properties, you are immune from any demand for disclosure of any details of the process in question. It seems to follow that you are also immune from any liability from damage done by a process that is invisible to the rest of the world.
My hunch is that this polluted water will contaminate the soil, leaving it unproductive for a long term of renewal. The response will be: “ahh, if only we’d known that this was going to happen. We just don’t have all the brilliant thinkers in California that we did at one time.”
In the meantime, test your fruit for flammability, and wash your vegetables in alcohol (or acetone) to dissolve away toxic organic residue.
coffeeguyzz on Sun, 3rd May 2015 10:23 pm
Heck of a coinkydink that Scott Smith, “Chief Scientist”, has no listed academic credentials but is, apparently, a graduate of Harvard Business School.
Oh, yeah, he also is the CEO of Opflex Solutions, a water filtration outfit.
Awhile back, he testified in a multimillion dollar lawsuit involving fraud/blackmail.
Now, it’s not that I’m questioning the integrity or validity of the people/techniques here … jes’ wondering.
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 4th May 2015 12:32 am
sick, sick sick. dump poison water onto the food. then you are eating it and getting killed.
i once saw something very gross. i walked onto a capped landfill, medium sized. it sloped downhill. At the low end of this long cap (maybe 1/4 mile long) nasty orange toxic water came pouring out and flowed across an asphalt road, and dumping into a stream.
the stream went straight down to a large farm field down below, a big big farm field that grows a lot of crops.
So all that toxic poison metal laced water, goes straight to the farm fields.
Cause America is the greatest nation on Earth, filled with potheads on food stamps, and ruled over by sinister swindling lying creeps like John Boehner. So who cares if poison water are dumped onto the crops, the people are 100% toxic anyway.
I’ll never forget what i saw that day at the toxic landfill, that nasty orange landfill water up above the farm fields. Buy organic.
rockman on Mon, 4th May 2015 1:27 am
Curious: anyone have references to anyone getting sick from crops watered with the recycled oil field supply? Given the many active/aggressive environmental groups in CA I would think there would be hundreds of such reports.
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 4th May 2015 5:36 am
rockman, isn’t this article, at the top of this webpage, such a report? If you stop to read it, they are quoting all sorts of toxins in the water.
I guess if you think about what is low level toxins entering your body, it is to get sick over a long period of time.
Then when you get cancer, you cannot sue the Rich Republicans who exposed you to the low-level toxins, because cause of cancer is statistical, not absolute. The Rich Republicans really like that part. That is why they get rich selling cigarettes, Monsanto crops, pesticides, nuclear materials. They get money, and everybody else gets cancer. Same with this sale of toxic waste to the farmers.
Davy on Mon, 4th May 2015 6:43 am
The same thing is being done around the friggen world with sewer sludge or in the Turd world just dumped however where ever. I agree this parading as green by supposedly having a win-win solution to a technological problem solved by technology is more BAUtopianism lies in action. It is also a hijacking of the green philosophy that anymore is just a corporate hijacking. Real greens turn away from technology not towards it
dave thompson on Mon, 4th May 2015 6:47 am
What can possibly go wrong?
Lawfish1964 on Mon, 4th May 2015 7:22 am
Articles like this make me glad I spent the entire weekend working on my urban farm. Tidied up the pig pen/chicken coop area with a nice little rock path to the coop and spent a day and a half on my knees hand-tilling and weeding half my vegetable boxes. I have 32 tomato plants all producing bunches of fruits, a row of cabbage heading up nicely, three patches of potatoes all thriving, half a box of green beans and a whole box of whiteacre peas planted. Add to that my perennial pepper pots, two apple trees and a blood orange tree and I’m good to go. When my 8 chickens start producing eggs, I’ll be set! No California Franken-veggies for me.
American Idiot on Mon, 4th May 2015 8:02 am
These people are just sick.
American Idiot on Mon, 4th May 2015 8:04 am
They need to close down all these useless corporate farms out of California. Theses greedy farmers have done nothing out there except waste everyone’s water without even paying a cent.
BobInget on Mon, 4th May 2015 9:58 am
What we have here is known as the ughie
factor. Not a single person in the last 20 years of GMO has been sickened by eating tofu or using ethanol in their SUV.
OK, I take back the part about tofu.
On the net, one of the biggest anti organic food complaints would be the use of manures, yes even human as fertilizer.
When properly composted, seeds and pathogens get cooked to safety.
Finally, unless fracc water is treated, it becomes a hazard for everyone… Including
the well driller and his family right on up (or down) to the CEO.
The time to clean up all waste for reuse
has already arrived, deal with it.
keith on Mon, 4th May 2015 10:58 am
BobInget. I Agree, but…
Greed always cuts corners. I knew a truck driver who was told to spray a little diesel on his broccoli when it began to wilt on hot sunny days. That’s the problem.
Lawfish1964 on Mon, 4th May 2015 11:54 am
BobInget, I don’t recall seeing people complaining about the use of manures as fertilizers. What I see is objection to oil-based fertilizers and pesticides/herbicides. Anyone who grows organic must know manure is the best fertilizer there is.
Mark Ziegler on Tue, 5th May 2015 11:15 am
I wonder what is worse, that or genetically modified foods.
viewcrafters
Apneaman on Tue, 5th May 2015 8:26 pm
We Are Eating Drilling & Fracking Waste
“t is happening in Canada too. The field above is northwest of Calgary. Former energy consultant Jessica Ernst said, “We are eating drilling, and fracking, waste.”
http://theecoreport.com/we-are-eating-drilling-fracking-waste/
Lawrence on Wed, 6th May 2015 11:16 pm
It is hard to believe that I have to put California in the same category as China when it comes to food safety. If I can determine if a food product came from China, I will leave it in the store. Short of growing my own food, now I have to figure out how to keep California grown foods out of my family’s diet. I don’t want my food anywhere near these toxins. If this continues, this might end up being an economic disaster for California and a death sentence for millions of unsuspecting consumers.
Davy on Thu, 7th May 2015 7:02 am
Lawrence, I have the same feeling about Chinese food. I avoid it if possible. I really like Chinese restaurant food but that is another story.