Kern County CA Irrigates W. Oil Wastewater; No Data On Dozens Of Chemicals, But It's "Safe"
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One of the biggest hurdles to evaluating the safety of produced water has been oil companies’ unwillingness to reveal key details about the chemicals they put down wells. Before joining the panel, Shonkoff was working on an independent study of fracking for the California Council on Science and Technology, or CCST, when he discovered a dataset he’d never seen before: a list of chemicals used in conventional oil development, from fields in Southern California. At the time, no other location in the country, and maybe the world, required chemical disclosure for conventional operations. The CCST assessment, commissioned by the state, revealed that testing and treatment of produced water used for irrigation might not remove or even detect chemicals used in fracking.
During fracking, operators inject a high-pressure mixture of water, chemicals and sand deep underground to break and then prop open surrounding rock to extract oil or gas. Conventional operations, by contrast, inject high-pressure steam to loosen gooey oil. Wastewater from both conventional and fracking operations falls under the heading of “produced water.”
When Shonkoff dug into the newfound data, and read the permits and regulations for Kern County’s produced water, he realized Chevron and other oil companies could put nearly any additives they wanted down wells. Although the water board prohibits using water from fracked wells for irrigation, fracking and conventional operations employ many of the same chemicals, Shonkoff told the board at the panel’s first public meeting. And most compounds used in conventional extraction processes in Kern County, he said, lack the information needed to assess safety.
It’s imperative that oil companies disclose not just which chemicals they use in oil and gas production but also the volume and frequency of their use, Shonkoff said. Until then, he said, “I’m not quite sure that we can say with any real level of certainty that this is safe or unsafe.” Rodgers of the water board said he’d obtained a list of all the chemical compounds oil companies use. But to avoid trade secret information, he said, the board could not get the recipe, which details how often a chemical is used and how much goes down wells. Rodgers said he felt the highest priority was to get a list he could share with the panel members and the public and compensated for not getting the recipe by assuming all the chemicals were used.
But knowing the hazard associated with a chemical depends on knowing that recipe, the panel concluded. It also requires knowing chemicals’ breakdown products.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06022022/a-california-water-board-assures-the-public-that-oil-wastewater-is-safe-for-irrigation-but-experts-say-the-evidence-is-scant/
