Environmental groups call for fracking moratorium in California

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/07/24/environmental-groups-call-fracking-moratorium-california

California's biggest environmental organizations are gathering in Sacramento tomorrow (Wed/25) to call for a moratorium on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing – also known as fracking, in which a mixture of water and chemicals is injected at high pressure deep underground to increase production in oil and natural gas wells – until its impacts are better understood.

The occasion is the last in a series of workshops on the issue by the California Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, which is considering new rules on a practice that is mostly unregulated in California. Other recent legislative and administrative efforts to address fracking have been scuttled by the powerful fossil fuel industry.

Earlier this year, Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica) discovered that state officials didn't even know how much fracking is happening in California – while it requires state permits to drill an oil or natural gas well, fracking them doesn't – although the industry has since estimated that more than 600 wells were fracked last year, most of them in Kern Country around Bakersfield.