Oil and wastewater then come to the surface
Fracking involves blasting huge volumes—140,000 to 150,000 gallons of pressurized water, sand, and often unspecified “proprietary” chemicals per day—into layers of rock far underground. Oil and wastewater then come to the surface, and companies separate the two and reinject the water component into designated disposal wells. The problem occurs when they reinject it where it can enter aquifers containing pure water. Experts estimate that California has an estimated 2,583 wastewater injection wells throughout the state, 1,552 of them currently active.
The state’s Water Board confirmed beyond doubt that in Kern County, several oil companies used at least nine of 11 injection wells to dispose of waste contaminated with fracking fluids and other pollutants, including high levels of arsenic, thallium, and nitrates, into high-quality water protected under both federal and more tolerant state laws. Thallium is a component of rat poison. Arsenic, toxic in itself, can also compromise the immune system and cause cancer. The state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources shut down the 11 Kern County oil field injection wells and began scrutinizing almost 100 others in July for posing a “danger to life, health, property, and natural resources.”
The Center for Biological Diversity, a national, nonprofit conservation organization, obtained documents relating to the illegal dumping. The state Water Board had written the US Environmental Protection Agency that the Central Valley Regional Water Board had discovered the violations. The state also said that 19 more injection wells may have also contaminated sensitive, protected aquifers. More than 100 water wells in northeast and east Bakersfield may also have been contaminated.