If you’ve recently snacked on grapes, almonds or oranges grown in California, chances are they were irrigated with fracking wastewater. What’s in the wastewater? According to a report by the Environmental Working Group, it’s a “toxic stew”:
“…more than a dozen hazardous chemicals and metals as well as radiation were detected in the wastewater, some at average levels that are hundreds or thousands of times higher than the state’s drinking water standards or public health goals.”
Even produce marked organic and natural are grown with fracking wastewater. And very few citizens are aware… though that seems to be changing.
For the benefit of the uneducated masses, Water Defense has been doing incredibly valuable work in California and across the US helping folks understand what energy companies and farmers would rather not discuss. Through viral videos like this one from actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, Water Defense is only one of many organizations fighting “extreme energy extraction”, along with Californians Against Fracking and many others.
The entire situation is gravely concerning. We’ve written before about the California drought crisis in the context of statewide fracking. The state simply doesn’t have enough fresh water for all of its crops, and desperation has driven farmers to do the unthinkable: water their crops with fracking wastewater. Now the media is taking notice:
Will US citizens passively accept a food chain drenched in toxic wastewater that is unfit to drink but barely qualified to irrigate crops with under questionable regulations? Or will a sustained revolution of community and political involvement turn the tide against aggressive fossil fuel extractors?