Acetone and hydrocarbons found in petroleum have once again been detected in the oil field wastewater that is used to irrigate oranges, table grapes and other crops in California’s Kern Valley, according to findings in a new report issued by Chevron itself.
The report also highlights how oil companies other than Chevron supply the program with wastewater. Until now, Chevron has been the only company widely and publicly associated with the project.
According to David Ansolabehere, general manager of the Cawelo Water District, the Valley Water Management Company – a nonprofit corporation providing oil field waste treatment and disposal services to independent oil producers in the Kern County – also discharges oil field wastewater into one of the ponds where the wastewater is contained before being distributed to farms. He communicated to Truthout by email.
These latest findings have reignited fears that crops grown with this wastewater in the Kern Valley, a region at the vanguard of the nation’s top agricultural producers, have been tainted by the potentially harmful contaminants found in the water.
Clay Rodgers, assistant executive officer for the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Fresno office, said he is “concerned” about the presence of acetone, a powerful industrial solvent, in the irrigation water.
“But at the kind of concentrations we’re talking about, it does not appear that there is a huge issue,” he said.