More bad news on hydraulic fracturing probably with secret handshakes and back room negotiations.
“An EPA investigation recently revealed that California regulators have handed out over 2,500 permits to illegally inject oilfield waste and other fluids into federally-protected aquifers - many of which are used for drinking water and irrigation.”
Perhaps, in the new order that last sentence will become toxic drinking water and irritation. Regulators also discovered hundreds of unlined wastewater ponds without permits in California. The problems aren’t new. There’s long been a disregard from the fossil fuel industry for the environment and human health where profits are concerned.
In 2012, the Associated Press reported Governor Brown saying, “The oil rigs are moving in Kern County. We want to use our resources... our sun and all the other sources of power. It’s not going to be easy. There’s going to be screw-ups. There’s going to be bankruptcies. There’ll be indictments, and there’ll be deaths. But we’re going to keep going. Nothings going to stop us.”
Perhaps, not - but when it comes to bad choices and human health, the people united can never be defeated.
Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-pits-oil-wastewater-20150226-story.html
http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/02/11/not-hundreds-thousands-oil-industry-injection-wells-dumping-wastewater-protected-california-aquifers
Ellen Knickmeyer, “California permitted oilfield discharge in protected water” AP, Feb. 6, 2015