Readers React: California still hasn’t figured out fracking

To the editor: Gov. Jerry Brown, whose pro-fracking policies were the subject of a recent protest in Oakland, will come under even more pressure to reassess his position as a result of a California state-mandated report that finds high levels (up to 700 times the federal standard) of toxic benzene in fracking waste water that was often allowed to be injected as “fracking flowback water into protected aquifers containing drinking water.” (“High levels of benzene found in fracking waste water,” Feb. 11)

Fracking, especially in California, doesn’t seem to make good sense. Think of the great quantities of water required in the fracking process (“10 or more gallons of water for each gallon of oil that comes out of the ground”) in a state experiencing extreme drought, the economic disincentives that exist in the present situation of oil glut and the potential health hazards of benzene-contaminated ground water.

Think clean energy.

Ted Hamilton, San Luis Obispo

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To the editor: It shouldn’t be shocking to find high levels of benzene near fracking sites when the perpetrators have been doing the testing and record keeping for years.

In New York, the governor recently banned fracking after numerous cases of fracking-contaminated water were found. In California, a moratorium on fracking should be ordered until unbiased testing is done.

Bill Wernett, Fallbrook

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