Water And Fracking -- California

The New York Times is reporting:

Driven by advances in drilling technology and high oil prices, oil companies are increasingly moving into traditionally agricultural areas like Shafter that make up one of the world’s most fertile regions but also lie above a huge untapped oil reserve called the Monterey Shale. Even as California’s total oil production has declined slightly since 2010, the output of the North Shafter oil field and the number of wells have risen by more than 50 percent.  

By all accounts, oilmen and farmers — often shortened to “oil and ag” here — have coexisted peacefully for decades in this conservative, business friendly part of California about 110 miles northwest of Los Angeles. But oil’s push into new areas and its increasing reliance on fracking, which uses vast amounts of water and chemicals that critics say could contaminate groundwater, are testing that relationship and complicating the continuing debate over how to regulate fracking in California.

“As farmers, we’re very aware of the first 1,000 feet beneath us and the groundwater that is our lifeblood,” said Tom Frantz, a fourth-generation farmer here and a retired high school math teacher who now cultivates almonds. “We look to the future, and we really do want to keep our land and soil and water in good condition.”

So, California has two issues:

• enough water for industrial, agricultural, personal use
• concern over groundwater and safety of fracking 

And they haven't even started talking about fracking, fault lines, and earthquakes in California.