Pact with devil? California farmers use oil firms' water

Yahoo – AFP, Veronique Dupont, 3 July 2015

Californian farmers have dealt with a devastating four-year drought, with 

temperatures frequently exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit)

 in the summer (AFP Photo/Mark Ralston)

Bakersfield (United States) (AFP) - An efficient solution to a historic drought, or an environmentally risky pact with the devil?

That's the question raised by California farmers who are irrigating their crops with waste water supplied by oil companies, in an arrangement slammed as dangerous by environmental campaigners.

Lines of orchards in Bakersfield, California, 

stand near fields of oil wells, and one 

district has used waste water from oil

 companies for 20 years (AFP Photo/

Frederic J. Brown)

Driving into the parched region around Bakersfield, in the western US state's fertile Central Valley, it is evident how closely the agriculture and oil industries are related.

Lines of orchards stand near fields of oil wells stretched out as far as the eye can see.

Eighty percent of the state's oil production and 45 percent of the farming industry is concentrated in a single county, Kern County, said Madeline Stano of the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.

With temperatures frequently exceeding 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in the summer, water is in scarce supply.

After four years of record drought, farmers can no longer pump water from rivers whose levels are dangerously low.

Drawing from the water table is also increasingly difficult: more than 1,000 wells have dried up in the region.

In a bid to diversify supplies, the Cawelo Water District, a cooperative financed by local farmers, has for 20 years used waste water from oil companies.

Abby Auffant, spokeswoman for oil giant Chevron, explained that crude comes out of the ground mixed with water, from which it must be separated.

Many farmhouses in Bakersfield,

California, have been abandoned as a

relentless drought takes its toll on crops 

and cattle (AFP Photo/David Mcnew)

Separating the water from the crude is a process that actually benefits oil firms, according to Stano.

"It's hard for the oil industry to get rid of, so it's a win-win for the oil companies" when they are able to sell the water, she said.

Chevron's Kern River operation sells some 500,000 barrels of waste water per day to the Cawelo Water District, which currently gets 50 percent of its supplies from the oil company.

The water is cleaned by a filtering system and piped to a reservoir where it is combined with supplies from other neighboring oil plants, before being mixed with fresh water and then distributed to some 90 local farms and vineyards.

The farmers pay about $33 per acre-foot (1,233 cubic meters), compared to up to $1,500 for the same quantity of fresh water, said David Ansolabehere, head of the water distribution cooperative.

A legal practice

The practice is entirely legal: Chevron and rivals including Occidental Petroleum Corporation have a permit to sell the water. They have it tested by a third-party firm and then supply the results to California authorities.

Oil giant Chevron is one company that 

sells waste water to farmers in California

 at far lower prices than fresh spring

water (AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan)

"We're in compliance with all the testing requirements," said Auffant.

"There's a petrochemical content in our... permit and we have always met and been under it."

But environmental campaigners don't see it the same way.

"It's an experiment that the state of California and the oil industry performs without consumer consent," Stano said.

"In Chevron's own report we found benzine and acetone, which are carcinogenics" in the water sold to farmers, she said, claiming that the tests also fail to detect other dangerous chemicals.

"There has been a gentleman's agreement to promote deregulation," she added.

Stano denounced a "lack of state enforcement and oversight (and) blind faith in the industries for a long time."

Scott Smith of the Water Defense lobby group, founded by actor Mark Ruffalo, also criticized the testing methods, which he called "outdated."

Water levels have dropped significantly

 in irrigation tunnels near Bakersfield,

 forcing farmers to seek alternative 

sources of water (AFP Photo/

Frederic J. Brown)

"Chevron should be interested in partnering with more than just their complicit customer (Cawelo Water District) to protect health, community, environment and water resources," he said.

Almonds, grapes and other agricultural produce are not evaluated apart from their pesticide content, Ansolabehere admitted.

He noted that Californian authorities have decided to form a working group that could order tests on farm produce, after a Chevron report showed salinity which Ansolabehere admitted "was a bit high."

The group would also verify that chemicals like acetone or benzene "cannot get into the roots, the leaves and the fruit," he added.

Tom Frantz, a former and environmental activist, said the stakes are high.

"People would stop buying anything from Kern County for a while if someone got sick," he said.

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"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  4 - Energy (again)

The natural resources of the planet are finite and will not support the continuation of what you've been doing. We've been saying this for a decade. Watch for increased science and increased funding for alternate ways of creating electricity (finally). Watch for the very companies who have the most to lose being the ones who fund it. It is the beginning of a full realization that a change of thinking is at hand. You can take things from Gaia that are energy, instead of physical resources. We speak yet again about geothermal, about tidal, about wind. Again, we plead with you not to over-engineer this. For one of the things that Human Beings do in a technological age is to over-engineer simple things. Look at nuclear - the most over-engineered and expensive steam engine in existence!

Your current ideas of capturing energy from tidal and wave motion don't have to be technical marvels. Think paddle wheel on a pier with waves, which will create energy in both directions [waves coming and going] tied to a generator that can power dozens of neighborhoods, not full cities. Think simple and decentralize the idea of utilities. The same goes for wind and geothermal. Think of utilities for groups of homes in a cluster. You won't have a grid failure if there is no grid. This is the way of the future, and you'll be more inclined to have it sooner than later if you do this, and it won't cost as much.

Water

We've told you that one of the greatest natural resources of the planet, which is going to shift and change and be mysterious to you, is fresh water. It's going to be the next gold, dear ones. So, we have also given you some hints and examples and again we plead: Even before the potentials of running out of it, learn how to desalinate water in real time without heat. It's there, it's doable, and some already have it in the lab. This will create inexpensive fresh water for the planet. 

There is a change of attitude that is starting to occur. Slowly you're starting to see it and the only thing getting in the way of it are those companies with the big money who currently have the old system. That's starting to change as well. For the big money always wants to invest in what it knows is coming next, but it wants to create what is coming next within the framework of what it has "on the shelf." What is on the shelf is oil, coal, dams, and non-renewable resource usage. It hasn't changed much in the last 100 years, has it? Now you will see a change of free choice. You're going to see decisions made in the boardrooms that would have curled the toes of those two generations ago. Now "the worst thing they could do" might become "the best thing they could do." That, dear ones, is a change of free choice concept. When the thinkers of tomorrow see options that were never options before, that is a shift. That was number four. ….”

"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”