Green California’s Big Oil Problem

By Liza Gross

Thousands of gallons of oil and toxic wastewater poured out of a pipe running through a Monterey County oil field on Friday, Dec. 5, in the latest of several recent spills around the state. The pipe released 168 gallons of oil and nearly 4,000 gallons of toxic wastewater from drilling operations managed by Aera Energy at the San Ardo Oil Field, which sits near olive groves, row crops and ranches at the southern end of the county’s $5 billion agricultural region.