Barely a mile from the southern shore of the Salton Sea — an accidental lake deep in the California desert, a place best known for dust and decay — a massive drill rig stands sentinel over some of the most closely watched ground in American energy.
There’s no oil or natural gas here, despite a cluster of Halliburton cement tanks and the hum of a generator slowly pushing a drill bit through thousands of feet of underground rock.
A national environmental organization on Monday threatened to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom to halt all new permits for gas and oil wells in the state, saying the governor has failed to protect Californians and the environment from hazards and pollutants released by the state’s billion-dollar petroleum industry.
County supervisors have outlawed drilling of certain new oil wells in the vicinity of a major aquifer for 45 days in light of water-safety questions. The decision Tuesday by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors came a couple of months after scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey reported that they had found petroleum-related gases in wells supplying irrigation water on the Oxnard Plain.The moratorium applies to the drilling of new wells and the re-drilling of existing ones near the Fox Canyon Aquifer, which is described as a major source of drinking quality groundwater.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
