For the past two decades, farmers in California have relied on treated oil field wastewater to irrigate their crops. Oil giant Chevron recycles 21 million gallons of wastewater each day, and sells it to farmers who use it on about 45,000 acres of crops — approximately 10% of Kern County’s farmland. So what’s in the water? Frighteningly, no one is quite sure.
Despite recent legislation that requires oil companies to disclose which chemicals they use in oil-extraction processes, the testing of wastewater has been limited. Jonathan Bishop, chief deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board, said that monitoring oil field activities has been a “low priority” in recent years. The onus of testing and disclosing results lies with the discharger — in this case, Chevron.
Drought of Testing
Until now, government authorities have only required limited testing of recycled irrigation water. While they test for naturally occurring toxins such as salts and arsenic, they haven’t screened for the range of chemicals used in modern oil production. Farmers test for pests or disease, but not water-borne chemicals. As a result, no one knows whether the crops have been contaminated. The ongoing drought conditions in California have only made the issue more pressing, as many farmers are forced to use recycled wastewater for their crops. We wrote about this issue previously, and now we’re seeing advocacy groups such as Water Defense rise up to address the issue.
Over the past two years, Scott Smith, chief scientists for Water Defense, has collected samples of the treated irrigation water that the Cawelo Water District buys from Chevron. Smith has worked as a consultant for the EPA and other government agencies on more than 50 oil spill disasters. In the Cawelo District irrigation water, he found chemicals like acetone and methylene chloride at concentrations higher than what he had seen at oil spill disaster sites. One sample of the Cawelo water registered levels of methylene chloride as high as 56 parts per billion–nearly four times the amount that he’d encountered at the 2013 ExxonMobile tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas. Acetone and methylene chloride are both industrial solvents, and methylene chloride is classified as a potential carcinogen.
Smith’s findings are extremely alarming, but many in the area seem to have turned a blind eye. Many farmers trust that the government is doing enough to protect them and their crops.
In a recent L.A. Times article, Glenn Fankhauser, assistant director of the Kern County Department of Agriculture and Measurement Standards, was quoted: “As long as they’re treating the water to the point where it’s allowed by whatever agency governs the quality of water, I think it would be OK.”
Others assume that organisms in the soil will remove toxins and impurities from the water.
Clouded Waters
Blake Sanden, an agriculture extension agent and irrigation water expert with UC Davis, said “everyone smells the petrochemicals in the irrigation water” in the Cawelo district. Sanden noted that it is difficult to tell whether crops are being contaminated by the fracking wastewater because “A lot of this stuff has not been studied in a field setting or for commercial food uptake.” That sentiment was echoed by Carl K. Winter at UC Davis:
“it’s difficult to say anything for sure because we don’t know what chemicals are in the water.”
Local residents and activists are pushing for stricter regulations and testing guidelines, so that we can see just how (un)safe the practice of irrigating with fracking wastewater truly is. Meanwhile, oil companies ask permission to conduct the tests less frequently, because they often find the water to be in compliance with present guidelines.
While the true chemical makeup of the fracking wastewater in California remains unknown, it is clear that more comprehensive testing is necessary. Two decades is far too long to remain in the dark. Agencies should be testing for the broad spectrum of chemicals used in oil production so that we can be certain of what is in the water, and how it may be affecting the crops and human health.