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California Shrugs Off Deadline for Shutting Down Illegal Oil Industry Injections

by Center for Biological Diversity
Brown Administration Lets 1,650 Oil Wells Continue Polluting Aquifers
SACRAMENTO, Calif., February 15, 2017 — Gov. Jerry Brown’s oil regulators today failed to meet their own deadline for shutting down 1,650 oil industry injection wells that are violating water-protection laws by dumping toxic fluid into protected California aquifers.

“Governor Brown’s administration has decided not to protect our water from illegal contamination by the oil industry,” said Hollin Kretzmann of the Center for Biological Diversity. “By failing to meet their own lax deadline for shutting down these polluting wells, state oil regulators have given Californians another reason not to trust a word they say.”

All illegal oil-industry injection activities were supposed to be halted by Feb. 15, 2017, according to a promise made two years ago by California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. The state could be imposing fines of up to $25,000 a day for every well that continues to operate in a protected aquifer.

But as of today, the state has shut just a portion of wells operating in aquifers that should be protected by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. State officials quietly announced the indefinite delay in enforcing the law in mid-January.

In March of 2015, state officials testifying before the California senate pledged to stick to the February deadline and other aspects of a schedule approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. John Laird, the state’s secretary of Natural Resources, told senators that the Brown administration was “fully committed to meeting these deadlines.”

The promises came in the wake of admissions by the Brown administration that state regulators had let oil companies operate thousands of injection wells that have been dumping wastewater into scores of protected underground water supplies in Monterey, Ventura, Kern and other counties (see interactive map: https://curtbradley.cartodb.com/viz/ba357eac-2db1-11e6-a7c1-0ecfd53eb7d3/embed_map).

But instead of halting most of the illegal injections, state officials have moved forward with plans to exempt as many as 40 of these aquifers from water-protection laws. If these “aquifer exemption” applications are approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the oil industry would be allowed to make permanent use of these water supplies for the disposal of contaminated waste fluid.

“The Brown administration will go down in history for this failure to enforce the law and safeguard our water from oil industry pollution,” Kretzmann said. “It’s a shocking abdication of the governor’s most fundamental duty to the people and environment of this state.”


The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.2 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-02-15-2017.php

Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Unity Jack for mother Earth
The advent of technologies that can access Ocean Waters and desalinate to fresh water, it seems useless to continue to build twin tunnels that will only contribute to the shortage of water transfer of water from the salmon and other fish spawning grounds to the 'Big Ag' farms, thusly threatening the wild fish and other wild plants and animals with the shortage of water must be moved from one area to another.

The twin tunnels project will not supply one more drop of water. Another contradiction is easily seen in that how can coastal Cal. sitting next to the largest body of water on the planet be unable to desalinate the Ocean water and then supply all the water needed wherever it is needed. The new tech hi and low is daily more and more available for just such a wise and useful project.

You all yet have a world to win!! Re-tool to the renewable energy and get out of the fossil fuels poioning of the air, land, and water. Voila!
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