Posted on 06/28/2016 4:58:28 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The researchers compiled data from the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, which tracks oil and gas wells around the state. Researchers determined if water had been detected while drilling, and also gathered data about depth, salinity and pressure. After looking at 360 oil and gas fields spread across eight counties, the researchers say that they’ve documented a trove of fresh water just over half the size of Lake Michigan hidden in California’s bedrock 1,000 to nearly 10,000 feet below the surface.
This is almost three times more groundwater than what was indicated in previous studies, many conducted over 20 years ago, and which stopped at a depth of 1,000 feet. Water any deeper than that was considered too expensive to retrieve, and could remain out of reach for the foreseeable future. While the survey extended to around 10,000 feet, the researchers say that much of the water lies closer to the surface, around 3,000 feet deep. The researchers published their work Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Tapping into these reservoirs would be expensive, given how deep they are, but could provide a desperately sought-after answer to the water crisis. Doing so may entail curtailing drilling activities in some regions, however, an option that would likely prove unpopular among the many oil and gas companies already operating in the area.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.discovermagazine.com ...
Ah, thanks, that changes the picture, doesn’t it?
Ignorant article at best. Wells on the Westside and other places to obtain deep aquifer water cost as much as $1,000,000.00 to drill going down 1,500 feet or more for a production well. The quality is not always that great. Even still California state law is now forcing water district’s and counties to limit pumping to safe yield to prevent lowering the water levels and subsidence. Coastal areas have already depleted the fresh water levels so much salt water intrusion will destroy the water quality from the ocean. There is no magic aquifer and the central region is pumping more than 1 million acre feet of groundwater and close to the same by state contractors in the south valley. The drought has already pushed pumping past the safe limits before the San Luis Project was built and now the state lets all of the fresh water go out the sea through the San Francisco Bay to protect an already extinct smelt that exists everywhere else. In the delta the Striped Bass eat all the smelt and juvenile salmon and blame the problem on the pumps. After a decade of limited pumping the smelt and salmon just got worse because of junk science and liberal politics and liberal biology. But no fear we have a magic aquifer. Nonsense, and criminal negligence as the Westside turns into a dust bowel. Turn the dang delta pumps on, build more storage, and raise Shasta dam.
...I’ve never understood why California, with all that coastline, doesn’t have a desalination plant every 150 miles or so....
It’s one of those “We’re going to take a few things from you for the common (Communist) good.” So says Hillary.
They would rather deplete Lake Michigan’s water supply and send it across the entire USA to the land of fruits and nuts. That explains everything.
Yep! Especially when you consider the “all in” cost - including all amortization and operational costs - of desalination are about 1/3rd that rate.
Yep, only in California, with the world’s biggest body of water bordering half the State, would we refuse to do something that would cut our water bills by a third AND eliminate our dependency on streams, aquifers and snow pack...
And allow enough water to flow to keep the Delta Smelt and Snail Darter happy.
Have you considered moving?
Yeah - I moved from Seattle to here! :)
Seattle doesn’t have a water problem, but lots of other issues. We may have expensive water here in Ventura, but the weather is perfect, the surf is phenomenal - and did I mention the weather?
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