'If there are wells having a direct impact
on drinking water, we need to shut them down now'. California state regulators allowed oil companies to dispose
of wastewater in clean groundwater supplies for years, according to a new report.
The San Francisco Chronicle, citing a review of state data,
reports that oil companies built more than 170 waste-disposal wells feeding
into bodies of groundwater that could otherwise have been used for drinking or
irrigation during one of the area’s worst droughts in centuries. The wells are
primarily located in the state’s agricultural Central Valley region, which was
particularly devastated by the drought.
“If there are wells having a direct impact on
drinking water, we need to shut them down now,” said Jared Bluemnfeld, regional
administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. “Safe drinking water is
only going to become more in demand.”
The
Brown administration allowed oil companies to inject toxic wastewater into
underground drinking water aquifers in the Central Valley, the Chron$
reports. The situation is being made worse by the fact that Central Valley
residents and farmers are increasingly pumping water out of the ground for
drinking and agricultural uses because of the drought. The wastewater
injections have been going on for years.
