After four years of record drought, farmers can no longer pump water from rivers whose levels are dangerously low.
Drawing from the water table is also increasingly difficult: more than 1,000 wells have dried up in the region.
In a bid to diversify supplies, the Cawelo Water District, a cooperative financed by local farmers, has for 20 years used waste water from oil companies.
Abby Auffant, spokeswoman for oil giant Chevron, explained that crude comes out of the ground mixed with water, from which it must be separated.
Separating the water from the crude is a process that actually benefits oil firms, according to Stano.
“It’s hard for the oil industry to get rid of, so it’s a win-win for the oil companies” when they are able to sell the water, she said.
Chevron's Kern River operation sells some 500,000 barrels of waste water per day to the Cawelo Water District, which currently gets 50 percent of its supplies from the oil company.
The water is cleaned by a filtering system and piped to a reservoir where it is combined with supplies from other neighboring oil plants, before being mixed with fresh water and then distributed to some 90 local farms and vineyards.
- Pact with devil? California farmers use oil firms' water, AFP, July 4, 2017.
2. Democratic strategist Maria Cardona told CNN’s Don Lemon that evangelical voters are embracing the devil by choosing to support President Donald Trump.
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