Lawmaker Wary Of Fracking Wastewater On Crops

A California legislator wants foods made with crops that rely on recycled fracking wastewater to be labelled as such.

“Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, said such water might include harmful contaminants, including carcinogens,” Capital Public Radio reported. “Oil companies sell Central Valley farms millions of gallons of treated wastewater every day for irrigation. Some water extracted from the ground during hydraulic fracturing is also used for irrigation.”

According to Gatto, the water is unappealing and consumers should have a choice.

“This is not water that you would want to drink. I think a lot of the people doing this have the attitude that the soil should just be the filter,” he said, per the report.

“Consumers have a basic right to make informed decisions when it comes to the type of food that ends up on the family dinner table. Labeling food that has been irrigated with potentially harmful or carcinogenic chemicals, such as those in recycled fracking water, is the right thing to do,” he continued in a statement.

Gatto is not alone in his concerns. “Food watchdog groups are concerned that the state hasn't required oil companies to disclose all the chemicals they use in oil drilling and fracking operations, much less set safety limits for all those chemicals in irrigation water,” Mother Jones reported.

The California Farm Bureau Federation and the Western Growers Association could not be reached or declined to comment on the Capital Public Radio report.

Using recycled oil and gas wastewater for irrigation is nothing new. "For decades Chevron has sent 30,000 acre feet per year of produced water from the Kern River oil field to the Cawelo Water District, which uses it to grow almonds and pistachios. One acre-foot is 325,850 gallons of water, or enough water to cover a football field 1 foot deep," the Bakersfield Californian reported.

Similar concerns arise around efforts to recycle more residential wastewater by treating it and using it on crops. Some research suggests that irrigating crops with wastewater is not harmful. In a study published in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers investigated this question.

"Treated wastewater is a valuable water resource, but its reuse for agricultural irrigation faces a roadblock: the public concern over the potential accumulation of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) into human diet," the study said.

The researchers tested for "19 commonly occurring pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in 8 vegetables irrigated with treated wastewater under field conditions," the study said.

"Tertiary treated wastewater without or with a fortification of each PPCP at 250 ng/L, was used to irrigate crops until harvest."

The conclusion? "The researchers found that while the vegetables did accumulate commonly occurring pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs)—including antidepressants, DEET, triclosan and caffeine — they were present only in very small amounts" Smithsonian reported.

For more news about fracking, visit Water Online’s Produced Water Treatment Solutions Center.