https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/01/14/18795351.php
California Agency Proposes Turning Monterey County Aquifer Into Oil
Waste Dump
Sat Jan 14 2017
State's Proposal Shrugs Off Voters' Approval of Ban on Oil Waste Injection
SAN ARDO, Calif., January 12, 2017 — Just months after Monterey County
voters approved a ban on underground injection of oil waste, California
regulators have announced a plan to turn an underground water supply in
the county over to the oil industry for injection of contaminated waste
fluid.
“This a slap in the face to Monterey County residents who voted to
protect water supplies from oil waste,” said Hollin Kretzmann of the
Center for Biological Diversity. “State regulators are ignoring the will
of the people and endangering their water by supporting this outrageous
plan to turn this aquifer over to the oil industry.”
The proposal — announced Wednesday afternoon by California's Division of
Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources — seeks to exempt an aquifer that runs
under the town of San Ardo from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
If approved by the incoming Trump administration, this "aquifer
exemption" could lead to water contamination, greater risk of oil
industry-induced earthquakes and increased crude production from one of
California's most carbon-intensive oilfields.
In November Monterey County voters passed Measure Z, a ballot initiative
that bans fracking, prohibits drilling new oil wells, and phases out
existing wastewater disposal wells. The measure won with more than 56
percent of the vote, despite supporters being outspent 30 to one by oil
companies.
Water contamination was a key concern in the election. Yet the state's
aquifer exemption application fails to prove that injected oil waste
will not migrate beyond the proposed exemption boundaries. That could
contaminate nearby water sources.
The state's proposal also shrugs off the risk that new oil-industry
injections could trigger manmade earthquakes. Scientists have already
linked quakes in the San Ardo oilfield to oil-industry activities.
A 2009 U.S. Geological Survey report describes an earthquake cluster in
San Ardo that was composed of 96 seismic events ranging up to magnitude
4.5. “Considering the lack of mapped faults, the northerly strike, and
the active oilfield operations, these events more likely were caused by
human activity rather than tectonic forces,” the USGS report concludes.
Oil-industry wastewater injection has been implicated in earthquakes in
Oklahoma, Texas and California. Even minor tremors could endanger other
nearby water supplies by opening up pathways to contamination.
State regulators' support of this aquifer exemption to facilitate
increased oil production is also at odds with California's efforts to
fight climate change.
Crude from the San Ardo oilfield is more climate damaging than any other
large source of oil produced in, or imported into, California, according
to a recent Center analysis of state data. The Center’s report, titled
Stealing California's Future, found that San Ardo crude is even more
carbon-intensive than notoriously dirty oil from the Alberta tar sands
in Canada.
“Why is the Brown administration helping one of the state's dirtiest
oilfields wiggle out of a federal law meant to protect our drinking
water?” Kretzmann said. “In a state struggling with drought and climate
change, this exemption application makes absolutely no sense.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit
conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online
activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2017/oil-waste-01-12-2017.php