Controversial drilling technique prompts CA bill
23.02.00
LOS ALAMOS, Calif. (AP) — In a place where oil exploration long co-existed with agriculture, a three-story contraption humming day and night in the heart of Santa Barbara wine country struck residents as a mere curiosity until someone uttered the petroleum industry's dirty word: fracking.
The industry claims fracking, or hydraulic fracturing — a method of extracting hard-to-reach gas and oil by pummeling rocks deep underground with high-pressure water, sand and chemicals — has been safely used for decades. But critics worry it can contaminate groundwater, cause air pollution and trigger small earthquakes.
Now, this little one-road town of Los Alamos is drawing attention to what many say is a largely unmonitored practice in California, the country's second-largest oil producer. The discovery that fracking has quietly been going on for years in California has galvanized oil foes and led to proposed legislation that would regulate the practice and make companies disclose the chemicals they use, the amount of water they're pumping and where they are fracking.
Source: The Associated Press