In a major step toward California’s first effort to bury climate-warming gases underground, Kern County’s Board of Supervisors today unanimously approved a project on a sprawling oil and gas field. The project by California Resources Corp., the state’s largest producer of oil and gas, will capture millions of tons of carbon dioxide and inject it into the ground in the western San Joaquin Valley south of Buttonwillow. The Carbon Terra Vault project is part of a broader bid by the oil and gas industry to remain viable in a state that is attempting to decarbonize. Although the company still faces additional steps, the county approval is a key development that advances the project. … The EPA will require the company to monitor the injection wells for a century to ensure that no groundwater is polluted. Initial examinations suggest there are no drinking water sources threatened by injecting carbon into the reservoir. But the project would use significant amounts of groundwater in a basin that already is over-pumped.

Related article:

• Los Angeles Times: California’s first carbon capture project gets OK from Kern County