California has released draft "fracking" regulations following pressure from state lawmakers and environmentalists.
The new regulations highlight the isolation and containment of fracking fluids to protect water tables; the communication of planned fracking activities and disclosure of activities after they take place; testing, monitoring and evaluation regulations and the storage of fracking fluids amongst other things.
The regulations are a response to public concern over potential environmental and public health hazards of fracking, which involves injecting a combination of water, chemicals and sand into oil bearing rock to release oil deposits. However, energy industry representatives have defended the practice, pointing to the fact that fracking has been used safely in California for decades without incident.
The new regulations may have less impact on the development of California's Monterey shale than in other areas of North America, due to the nature of the geology and the difficulty of extracting oil from deposits which have been producing limited quantities of oil since 1890, according to records.