California is the fourth largest oil producer in the country. As we speak, almost 81,000 wells across the state are churning out oil and gas or being used to inject wastewater back into the ground. For every three of those wells, however, there’s another one well that’s not doing any of those things—and yet they, too, can deteriorate and contaminate the air and water over time. Now, a new state law aims to prevent those hazards. When you picture an oil company CEO, Chad Hathaway may not be who comes to mind. The father of three looks young. He’s built like a football player, and has the energy of a college student. He started his company, Hathaway LLC, shortly after graduating. “I started the company from scratch,” he says. “I borrowed $ 5,000 from my mom, who was a schoolteacher.” Now, he operates a few hundred wells in Kern County. On a warm spring morning, he takes me to some on a sandy, scrubby plot of land in the Fruitvale oilfield just outside Bakersfield. He gestures to a handful
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