Oilfield Wastewater Used to Grow Food in California May Contain Toxins

[womanofthehills]

Did you know that some of the fruits and veggies out on supermarket shelves are grown using wastewater from oil and gas operations?

For the past several years, many drought-stricken farms in California's Central Valley, which produces 40 percent of the nation's fruits and vegetables, have been increasingly irrigating their crops with wastewater -- a practice the US Department of Agriculture does not restrict.

Now a new report by the Environmental Working Group says that this wastewater is possibly tainted with toxic chemicals, including chemicals that can cause cancer and reproductive harm. Farmers in Kern County have irrigated some 95,000 acres of food crops with billions of gallons of oil field wastewater, according to the report, which is based on an analysis of state data.

Actually, oil companies have been quietly selling wastewater for irrigation in California for decades, but it's only in recent years that the matter has become public knowledge. In the past, the state required regular testing for only a handful of pollutants to satisfy permit requirements for use of wastewater on agriculture. This is the first time we are getting a detailed look at the makeup of the toxic cocktail that could be lurking in the water.

According to state data, oil companies operating in California have reported that recycled wastewater sold to Kern County irrigation districts since 2014 contained more than 20 million pounds and 2 million gallons of dozens of toxic chemicals. These chemicals included 16 that the state classifies as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants. Levels of the chemicals were not measured and a full assessment of what exactly is in this water is pretty much impossible because the companies have withheld the identity of almost 40 percent of the chemicals as so-called trade secrets.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38168-oilfield-wastewater-used-to-grow-food-in-california-may-contain-toxinshttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38168-oilfield-wastewater-used-to-grow-food-in-california-may-contain-toxins

[Mc Mike]

1. Anything to help the oil co nazis externalize their costs. Thanks woth. rec, nT.

[Egnever]

2. May?

[no_hypocrisy]

4. + 1,000,000

[womanofthehills]

8. Yea! - a little more radioactivity in our food is no big deal - really funny!

Radionuclides in Fracking Wastewater: Managing a Toxic Blend

Naturally occurring radionuclides are widely distributed in the earth’s crust, so it’s no surprise that mineral and hydrocarbon extraction processes, conventional and unconventional alike, often produce some radioactive waste.1 Radioactive drilling waste is a form of TENORM (short for “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material”)—that is, naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) that has been concentrated or otherwise made more available for human exposure through anthropogenic means.2 Both the rapidity and the extent of the U.S. natural gas drilling boom have brought heightened scrutiny to the issues of radioactive exposure and waste management.

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a50/

[Igel]

10. Yup.

Krypton and xenon radioactive tracers. Of course they're gases. Watering your plants with a gas is difficult. As for the radioactivity, they're used in very small amounts and have short half-lives. Tracers with long half-lives really aren't tracers.

Another is sodium iodide (it's the iodine that's radioactive). Of course the half-life is days or weeks, and if they take a few weeks to use and then process the water, it's gone.

Many others are very volatile. Some others are also quickly biodegraded like methanol. Some others are only dangerous if you ingest them (things like crystalline quartz). Others are only dangerous until neutralized, like sulfuric acid--trust me, you spray crops with sulfuric acid and they die.

Some of the chemicals are those used in waste-water treatment, to react with and render contaminants harmless.

They don't point his out. But a high-school chemistry teacher could tell you these things just looking at the list of chemicals that the EWG lists, and many of that chemistry teacher's students had damned well better be able to point this out. But EWG scholars prefer to keep their readership in the dark and anxious, if not terrified. This is manipulation, and many put their trust in those who knowingly and profitably manipulate them.

In other cases, it may take a bit of digging (i.e, 10 seconds with a computer and search engine) to figure out what's going on. So cumene is bad. But in air it degrades slightly. And in he presence of oxidizing agents it degrades quickly. Sulfuric acid oxidizes. However, cumene degrades quickly in soil, with about half vanishing in 45 days according to at least one experiment (the C-14 tracer used in that experiment showed up as CO2 and incorporated organics, not as cumene).

For the EGW, ignorance is bliss. Well, their readers' ignorance is their bliss.

The EWG report is at https://static.ewg.org/reports/2016/og_wastewater/OG_Wastewater.pdf?_ga=1.13906935.175377856.1477752876.

It's a spiced up version of their main data source (which they cite in their own way) located at
http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/data/Preliminary_Results_13267_Disclosures_FINAL.pdf

The difference between the two is simple: "We need to do more research into what's actually there" versus "They're trying to kill you, the bastards, and you should be afraid pending confirmation that we don't need lots of regulation and to put those people we already hate in jail for even more mass murder."

[Major Nikon]

12. There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever

-- Food Babe

[Major Nikon]

11. Hydric acid is commonly used as an industrial solvent and is now in virtually all food

Andy Warhol died from hydric acid intoxification.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

[lonestarnot]

3. mmm crude oil waste spiced marinera

[Major Nikon]

5. My food paranoia wake-up call:

My food paranoia wake-up call: The EWG wants us to be afraid of the food we feed our kids — here’s why I refuse

Dr. Alison Bernstein, the mom and scientist behind the popular Facebook page Mommy PhD, has been critical of the EWG’s methods: “Instead of providing knowledge and education to consumers, the EWG has built a brand around small bits of information designed to induce fear. Their hazard scores in the Skin Deep database exaggerate risks and do not consider exposure, which they admit in their methodology.”

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/my_food_paranoia_wake_up_call_the_ewg_wants_us_to_be_afraid_of_the_food_we_feed_our_kids_heres_why_i_refuse/

[womanofthehills]

7. Californians Deliver 350,000 Signatures Calling on State, Gov. Brown to Stop Irrigation

of crops with wastewater.

“Californians want to know what is in the water and the soil that is used to grow their food. This should not be a problem, especially if there is nothing to hide,” said Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles).

California produces almost half of the fruits, nuts and vegetables that feed the United States, and more than 100 farms in the Central Valley use oil wastewater for irrigation. Some of the United States’ most popular brands grow food in the Cawelo and North Kern water districts, including Trinchero Family Estates (makers of Sutter Home wines), Halos Mandarins (formerly known as Cuties) and The Wine Group (makers of Cupcake and Fish Eye wines).

At the same time, there hasn’t been a comprehensive, independent study to determine if the wastewater is safe for crop irrigation. The limited analysis done used outdated methods; regulators don’t screen for all the chemicals used in oil extraction, many of which are carcinogens. The Los Angeles Times reported that a test of the wastewater sold by Chevron to the Cawelo Irrigation District contained acetone and benzene.

Some of the chemicals used in oil operations are linked to cancer, kidney failure, reproductive issues and liver damage. No comprehensive and independent analysis has been conducted to assess the safety of the wastewater. Oil-industry wastewater can contain high levels of benzene and other cancer-causing chemicals. State oil officials’ own study detected benzene levels in oil
wastewater at thousands of times the federal limits for drinking water.
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/oil-waste-08-09-2016.html

[Major Nikon]

9. Cow shit contains a number of "chemical toxins" and is routinely used to fertilize organic food

So undoubtedly we should discontinue using cow shit on our food until we study the subject more extensively. I mean would you eat cow shit? Of course not. So why should we sprinkle it all over our food?

https://www.kcet.org/redefine/our-food-is-not-being-grown-with-fracking-wastewater

"And the end product comes to this holding pond. 65 acre-feet of produced and treated oil field waste water coming to the Cawelo Water District every day. That's enough water to irrigate 6,300 acres of pistachio trees every month. And the latest test data shows this water is suitable for irrigating food crops with no health risk to consumers."

"We did some testing requested by the regional board to test the water for various chemicals, volatile and semi-volatile organics and heavy metals," said Cowelo's General Manager David Ansolabehere. "We've also employed a toxicologist to go through those results."

Bottom line...the study found concentrations of all contaminants well within drinking water standards....presenting no threat to irrigated plants, food safety or human health...the lead toxicologist says concerns raised by environmentalists are largely unfounded.

"We also did some initial fruit testing because people were saying well there's accumulation in the fruit," Ansolabehere said. "We've tested almonds, pistachios and grapes in Cawelo and outside the district and outside the county. There is no difference between the fruit grown with produced water or blended oil field produced water and crops grown with federal or state water...no discernable difference," Ansolabehere said.

http://www.kerngoldenempire.com/news/cawelo-water-tests-released

[womanofthehills]

6. Breast Cancer Action Demands Agricultural Companies Stop Selling Pink Ribbon Citrus While Irrigating

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Breast Cancer Action (BCAction), the respected watchdog for the breast cancer movement, expressed outrage over California agribusinesses using oil wastewater to irrigate food crops while putting pink ribbons on their products.

BCAction’s 2016 Think Before You Pink® campaign, Toxic Isn’t Tasty, calls on citrus industry giants Bee Sweet Citrus and Wonderful Citrus, the producers of the popular Halos® mandarins, to cease using oil wastewater to irrigate produce.

“We’re outraged that agricultural companies are using oil corporations’ leftover wastewater to grow their produce. We believe this is an urgent public health issue because of the potentially hazardous chemicals associated with the oil extraction process,” said Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action. “These companies are also putting pink ribbons on their citrus, which means they’re pinkwashing.”

http://www.bcaction.org/2016/10/04/breast-cancer-action-demands-agricultural-companies-stop-selling-pink-ribbon-citrus-while-irrigating-food-crops-with-oil-wastewater/?printerfriendly