Don’t think too much and you can blame the Delta Smelt for causing the agricultural water shortage in the Central Valley. But farmers are pretty smart people. They know who they’re up against, even if the Delta Smelt makes good headlines for Sarah Palin.
Instead let’s take a good look at our oil production neighbors, those friendly folks with the great commercials–like Chevron. Say, fellow consumer, how do you think the gooey, tarry crude oil found in the fields west of Bakersfield becomes a gallon of gas? It takes fresh water and lots of it.
The heavy oil found here oozes in a goo like thick yogurt. One reporter described the consistency “like liver in a meat case.” It takes lots and lots of fresh water from the State Water Project, ie, the Aqueduct, converted to steam, to dilute the viscosity of the crude oil, and force it into the underground and invisible network of horizontal well bores where it is pumped to the surface. Above ground it creates that surreal oil production landscape you see, dancing lights against the night sky and gas flares.
Since the 1960s enough water, or steam, has been injected into the oil fields “to create a lake one foot deep covering more than thirteen thousand square miles—nearly twice the surface area of Lake Ontario.” That’s to extract “dirty oil.” And it takes roughly eight barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil.
That’s water siphoned away from growing fruits and vegetables, and water to drink. What happens to the water waste? . Once through the pipes fresh water becomes useless for further oil production. It becomes produced water, and often lies in unlined evaporation ponds. Here it seeps below into aquifers, adding to what is poisoning the drinking water for little places like Alpaugh and Kettleman City.
Apparently the fresh water tap even during drought is never turned off when it comes to oil companies. They boast in their commercials how they recycle produced water. Exactly how–and how much– is a trade secret. Water treatment (recycling) is expensive. It’s a lot less expensive to pay the occasional fine and write it off as a cost of doing business.
It’s not the fault of EPA’s regulatory staff. The task of enforcement of whatever puny laws restrain the oil companies falls upon “three or four” state workers. What can they possibly do? Oversight entities don’t–and can’t–keep track.
Put to the task of understanding how water flows in California and what it costs, and who’s getting what, makes you feel like you’re asked to shift Mount Everest with a bent plastic spoon.
That Byzantine complexity serves Chevron and smaller companies well. Bore deeply into water policy in California from the perspective of a water drinker, and you want to howl in misery.
Oil companies deny any environmental damage (think Kettleman City) and the Cal EPA shrinks from taking them on. After all ten per cent of the nation’s oil production comes from around Bakersfield.
The energy industry and agriculture compete; yet in times of drought when farmers go dry, oil companies keep the tap running full bore. How is that? We let it happen because we need those cars to get places.
We as gasoline consumers have to put the car in the garage more often while there’s still a glass of water fit to drink. I live fifty miles, more or less, from a big city with big box stores, entertainment, and places to people watch. I need my car to drive into town every few weeks to charge up and shake off the cabin fever.
Me, the big talker, what am I willing to sacrifice?