The Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has set compliance schedules that may lead to the closure of 2,000 wells that are injecting wastewater into aquifers.

Oil and gas supervisor Steven Bohlen said  his office is urging the EPA to take an inventory of aquifers not yet federally exempt.

Those 2,000 wells are injection wells, and they’re into aquifers that contain hydrocarbons,” he said. “So, there is every expectation that those aquifers would become exempt under the rules of the game.”

The schedule also calls for wells that are drilling into protected aquifers to be shut down by 2017. Nearly all the injection sites are in Kern County.

– Anthony Pollreisz