Lake Comico is located approximately 13 miles west of San Jose’s City Hall (37.47N, 121.82W), nestled deep within the Santa Cruz Mountains. The lake has a water capacity of 3,309,200 cubic feet and is the manmade byproduct of the unprecedented Comico Drilling Company Tragedy.
In 1933, Comico Drilling Co. bought the 5,200 acres of land where prime oil reservoirs had been discovered. The company set up oil drills and pumped nearly 3,000 barrels a day at its peak. At the rate at which they were pumping, engineers and scientists estimated that the reservoir would be able to sustain enough oil drilling to last for about 85 years. On August 27, 1938, nearly five years after Comico pumped their first gallon of oil; the well had run dry. Geologist ran soil samples and discovered an unknown bacterial substance in the ground that was eating the oil and reproducing in mass productions. The 5,200 acres where the drills had been stationed began to collapse into the ground where the immense underground oil reservoir once lied.
The Federal Government took control of the property in 1940 as it was deemed a biological hazard to the health and safety of the general population. Shortly thereafter, in the following two years, immense rainfall hit the San Francisco Bay Area, bringing an average rainfall of 5.34” throughout the year. The area where Comico Drilling Co. once thrived had now been filled with water and was known as Lake Comico. The area around Lake Comico began to bloom with beautiful flowers and trees and the wildlife around the lake began to thrive just as the oil wells had done several years ago.
In 1988, almost fifty years after the tragedy of Comico Drilling Co and the discovery of the bacterial substance, researchers from Stanford Medical had conducted that the bacteria that was eating the oil had been reproducing and turning its waste in to genetically enhanced proteins that enrich human DNA.
Today, the lake is now used to provide water for the entire South Bay Area. The water of Lake Comico has special proteins that have Stanford Medical anticipating the average life span increasing by over 20 years in the area where the water is consumed. Scientist’s also anticipate that this bacteria will be a breakthrough in the fight for cancer and research is now being conducted in the name of Comico Drilling Co. who once had to deal with the tragedy of this unprecedented event.
Chris Hendey, Comm100w