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Statement from CFS’s Senior Attorney Adam Keats:
We are here to say that we know full well what it means to water our crops with toxic oil wastewater. It means chemicals, known and unknown, being flushed into our rivers and groundwater. It means chemicals, known and unknown, being sprayed on our food. And even if those chemicals slough off or get washed off before we eat those fruits, it means farmworkers breathing, touching, smelling, and tasting those chemicals. It means birds, fish, animals and bugs breathing, touching, smelling and tasting those chemicals.
We are here to say that we want nothing to do with this practice. We want nothing to do with the watering of food with oil wastewater, and just as importantly, we want nothing to do with the oil drilling that is creating that toxic water in the first place.
We are here to say that we know full well that using oil wastewater to grow crops is not water recycling—it is greenwashing the unnecessary use of massive amounts of water to extract oil and it is greenwashing the massive amounts of polluted wastewater that necessarily result from this toxic practice. It is greenwashing a toxic oil industry that simply should not exist—not here in California and not anywhere.
We are here to say that we know that the false logic on which this whole scheme is based necessarily resulted when our food production was taken over by corporations—when our family farms and community agriculture become Big Ag.
And we are here to say that we know that there is something that we can do about all of this. We know that we can stop buying these Big Ag products. We know that we can support farming practices that do not do more harm than good; that work in harmony with the environment rather than in competition with it. That support farmworkers with real living wages and a safe and healthy workplace.
We are here to say NO to Big Ag and its toxic stew of unsustainable crops, wasteful water use, and codependency with the worst and most harmful industry on this planet: the oil industry.
We are here to say NO to Big Ag polluting the environment, poisoning our food, and harming farmworkers.
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