California state senator: Dangerous chemicals being pumped underground without oversight

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California oil and gas regulators have failed to monitor practices used to access shale oil, including the injection of dangerous chemicals underground, a state senator said Thursday, urging passage of her proposed oversight legislation.

Fran Pavley, chair of the Senate committee on Natural Resources and Water, said she was discouraged by the responses she received from the state’s oil and gas well regulator to her inquiry about the use of corrosive acid to dissolve rock and unlock oil in California’s massive Monterey Shale deposit, an issue first raised by Reuters in May.

Industry officials have said that “acid jobs” could play as important a role in extracting oil as the better-known technique of hydraulic fracking.

“It is deeply concerning that dangerous acids and Proposition 65 chemicals are being pumped underground without any permits or oversight,” said Pavley, referring to a decades-old law designed to protect drinking water sources from substances that cause cancer.
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Is it me or should the oil companies start drinking their own product?