Price Canyon oil well plans threaten residents’ water supply

As a Price Canyon resident, I am shocked that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency might give the oil industry permission to dump toxic waste fluid into underground water supplies near my house (“Oil company plans to drill 481 new wells at Price Canyon oil field,” March 26).

As your article notes, there’s an obvious link between this “aquifer exemption” proposal and Freeport-McMoRan’s plans to drill hundreds of new oil wells in this field. Yet the aquifer exemption application submitted to the EPA by state oil officials basically ignores Freeport’s plan to drill or rework up to 481 wells with the goal of a tenfold increase in oil production.

Huge amounts of toxic wastewater will come up with that oil, and much of that waste will be dumped down injection wells into this aquifer. But state officials have not even tried to predict what those new injections will do to underground water pressure and movement.

My water well is crucial to my family, and my neighbors are in the same boat. We desperately need the EPA and San Luis Obispo County officials to step up and protect our water from the threat of oil industry contamination.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Price Canyon oil well plans threaten residents’ water supply."