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 Oil well operators used more than 80 billion gallons of water in
California last year in “enhanced” oil recovery techniques such as
steam injection and water flooding, which help bring heavier,
thicker crude to the surface.
Water also comes to the surface during oil drilling, but it is
unclear how much of that "produced water" is reused by the oil
companies for new production because there are currently no
reporting requirements, something the bill seeks to address. Oil
drilling produced more than 130 billion gallons of water last year.
“The public has the right to know about the oil industry’s use of
limited fresh water supplies,” said Senator Fran Pavley, the bill’s
author.
 Environmentalists applauded the bill’s passage, saying it is key to
understanding who is contributing to the depletion of aquifers
during the drought.
“We think that the oil and gas industry is using far more water than
they will admit, and applaud the California legislature, in
particular the author of the bill, Senator Pavley, for recognizing
the need for transparency,” said Miriam Gordon, California director
of Clean Water Action.
Oil industry officials objected to an earlier version of the bill,
which would have required oil producers to only use recycled water
during times of drought, a move they said would be tantamount to a
moratorium on oil production in the state.
Those objections were dropped when the bill was revised as a
reporting-only bill, and the industry's primary lobbying group, the
Western States Petroleum Institute, said it was neutral on the final
bill.
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Last year, Pavley authored a bill requiring the oil industry to
report the amount of water used during hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking, a well stimulation technique where water and chemicals are
injected deep underground to break up rock and free oil and gas
deposits.
The bill passed on Thursday adds enhanced oil recovery and
non-fracking operations to the mandatory reporting framework laid
out in that bill.
The bill now heads to Governor Jerry Brown’s desk, where he is
expected to sign it into law.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Ken Wills)
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