permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Californians Outraged As Oil Producers & Frackers Excluded From Emergency
Water Restrictions (Reuters)
nShaCalifornia's oil and gas industry is estimated (with official data due
to be released in coming days) to use *more than 2 million gallons of fresh
water per day*; so it is hardly surprising that Californians are outraged
after discovering that these firms are excluded from Governor Jerry Brown's
mandatory water restrictions, *"forcing ordinary Californians to shoulder
the burden of the drought."*

   *California should require oil producers to cut their water usage as
part of the administration’s efforts to conserve water in the
drought-ravaged state, environmentalists said* on Wednesday.

Governor Jerry Brown ordered the first statewide mandatory water
restrictions on Wednesday, directing cities and communities to cut their
consumption by 25 percent. But* the order does not require oil producers to
cut their usage nor does it place a temporary halt on the water intensive
practice of hydraulic fracturing*.



California’s oil and gas industry* uses more than 2 million gallons of
fresh water a day to produce oil through well stimulation practices
including fracking, acidizing and steam injection, according to estimates
by environmentalists.* The state is expected to release official numbers on
the industry’s water consumption in the coming days.



*“Governor Brown is forcing ordinary Californians to shoulder the burden of
the drought by cutting their personal water use while giving the oil
industry a continuing license to break the law and poison our water,”* said
Zack Malitz of environmental group Credo.



*“Fracking and toxic injection wells may not be the largest uses of water
in California, but they are undoubtedly some of the stupidest,”* he said.



*The industry has received scrutiny for how it disposes of undrinkable
water *produced during oil drilling. Last month the state ordered the
operators of 12 wells to halt injections of the water out of fear that it
could contaminate fresh drinking water supplies.

In an interview with the PBS Newshour on Wednesday, *Brown indicated that
curbing oil industry water use would not help a state so dependent on
petroleum products* such as gasoline and diesel.

*“If we don’t take it out of our ground, we’ll take it out of someone
else’s,”* Brown said.