California is known for the twin threat of natural disasters from drought and earthquakes, with both phenomena certain to give many residents serious concern.

But there is one group that is starting to reap serendipitous marketing ammunition from the state’s current historic drought and the ever-present worry of ground-shaking tremors: the anti-fracking movement.

“California faces two interlinked crises, a water crisis and a climate crisis, and fracking makes both of these problems worse,” said Kassie Siegel, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit conservation group.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing — a method of high-pressure injection of substances to extract oil from rock formations — has become a hugely controversial subject across the United States. Defenders of the process, especially the oil and gas industry, hail it as a solution to America’s energy woes. Critics say it is highly pollutive and contributes to climate change at a time when the country should be moving away from fossil fuels.

But California’s unique circumstances have led to a different twist on the debate over fracking wells. “They use an enormous amount of fresh water … And fracking has been known to induce earthquakes,” said Siegel.

Drought and quakes are bound to get every Californian to stand up and listen. The state is in its third year of drought, and water reserves are so low that this year is on track to be the worst in 500 years. At the same time, the southern part of the state has been shaken by several earthquakes in recent weeks, and the specter of the Big One looms large.

“Those injection wells, when put near faults, create and aggravate seismic activity,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California. “In California, we’re starting to wonder. Is it being made worse?”

The anti-fracking lobby has pounced on the trigger words “drought” and “quake” in its campaign to ban the controversial process. The momentum has picked up statewide, although 95 percent of fracking in California is confined to rural Kern County, an oil-rich area that produces 60 percent of the state’s oil. Unlike the situation in the Northeast and Midwest of the U.S., all the fracking done in California is to drill for oil, not natural gas.

A bill proposing a statewide moratorium on fracking passed a Senate committee this week. In January, a state law that requires oil companies to obtain permits for fracking and to estimate how much water they’ll use took effect. State agencies are developing more comprehensive regulations, but many local governments are taking matters into their own hands.