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California's epic drought is pushing Big Oil to solve a problem it's struggled with for decades: what to do with the billions of gallons of wastewater that gush out of wells every year.
Golden State drillers have pumped much of that liquid back underground into disposal wells. Now, amid a four-year dry spell, more companies are looking to recycle their water or sell it to parched farms as the industry tries to get ahead of environmental lawsuits and new regulations.
The trend could have implications for oil patches across the country. With fracking boosting the industry's thirst for water, companies have run into conflicts from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. California could be an incubator for conservation efforts that have so far failed to gain traction elsewhere in the U.S.
If you were thinking California's drought might accelerate desalinization technology, you're wrong. It's actually helping the oil and natural gas industries make more money.
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @04:21AM
That article is almost all green-washing. Trying to spin it as conservation - which technically it is, in the worst possible way.
Instead of dumping who knows what into our food supply - why don't they 'conserve' this water by reusing it on the next drilling site instead?
And to top it off Chevron practically admits being evil with that standard corporate non-denial, "it has met all the pollution standards in its permit." Everybody knows the lobbyists write the laws, a line like that just says "we are using every possible loophole to keep the water as contaminated as possible."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @05:01PM
Instead of dumping who knows what into our food supply - why don't they 'conserve' this water by reusing it on the next drilling site instead?
"Whoah! We can't do that! Do you know how toxic that crap is?!!"