Fracking "Toxic Stew" in California

Disclosures in California revealed this week that a bevy of toxic, cancer-linked chemicals in fracking wastewater are routinely injected back into the ground. State regulators of the oil and gas industry, meanwhile, admitted to substandard oversight.

More than a year after California’s unprecedented law requiring transparency over contents of hydraulic fracturing -- or fracking -- wastewater, a new report by the Environmental Working Group showed that the state has allowed a variety of carcinogenic chemicals to be pumped back into the ground after use, thereby freeing oil and gas deposits.

The group said that “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.”

The report – ‘Toxic Stew: What’s in Fracking Wastewater’ – stemmed from the state’s 2013 disclosure law which mandates the comprehensive testing and public release of the chemicals in drilling wastewater. The oil and gas industry has fought hard – with cover from government regulators like the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California’s own Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources – to obfuscate and conceal what it injects into the Earth.

“Petroleum chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive elements, plus high levels of dissolved solids, are among the pollutants found in fracking wastewater samples tested under the new disclosure program,” the Environmental Working Group wrote.

“They include benzene, chromium-6, lead and arsenic – all listed under California’s Proposition 65 as causes of cancer or reproductive harm. Nearly every one of the 293 samples tested contained benzene at levels ranging from twice to more than 7,000 times the state drinking water standard. The wastewater also carried, on average, thousands of times more radioactive radium than the state’s public health goals consider safe, as well as elevated levels of potentially harmful ions such as nitrate and chloride.”