Fracking Projects Now to Need California Environmental Quality Act Review

FRACKING PROJECTS NOW TO NEED CEQA REVIEW

                                      

   “For 40 years, the Clean Water Act has

helped protect our water. But in the 112th

Congress, we’ve seen an unprecedented attack

from House leadership on clean water policy,”

said Michael Brune, executive director of the

Sierra Club.

   Bakersfield’s newly elected 23rd

Congressional District Representative Kevin

McCarthy, House Majority Whip,  received an

“F” from Sierra Club for votes cast against

protection of U.S. water resources. Democrat

Jim Costa also received an “F” grade.

   View the new Clean Water Report Card at

www.sierraclub.org/coal/reportcard/

   Oil companies that want to extract oil using

hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, techniques in

California may now find the controversial process a

tough sell.

   Responding to pressure from the environmental

community, the California agency responsible for

regulating the oil and gas industry recently delivered a

major setback to fracking in a decision likely to

reverberate throughout the state.

    In a nutshell, the state’s Division of Oil, Gas &

Geothermal Resources reversed its decision to exempt

an oil company from environmental review as

required in the California Environmental Quality Act

– an action that may set a precedent for future permit seekers too. 

    The agency’s decision came after Sierra Club filed

a lawsuit to force the agency to compile the

environmental review that was totally lacking for this

project and, by implication, for thousands of other

such projects that have gone completely without

public disclosure for many years.  In a Nov. 27 letter

to the oil company, Century Exploration Resources of

Bakersfield, the agency wrote:

    “Following review and analysis of the legal

challenge, [the agency] has determined that the

proposed well operations will result in more than a

minor alteration in the condition of the affected land,

and therefore are not exempt pursuant to CEQA

Guidelines section 15304.”

    “This is clearly a result of the Sierra Club lawsuit

and is a first step towards public disclosure of the

potentially massive environmental impacts, including

possible fracking, of the thousands of new oil/gas

wells that DOGGR has permitted this year alone,”

said Gordon Nipp of the Kern-Kaweah Chapter.

    In a separate lawsuit filed

in October, the Sierra Club,

court to with a larger-scale

pattern and practice lawsuit

Earthjustice, the Center for

Biological Diversity, Earthworks and other environmental advocates went to

to force the agency to abide

by the state’s foremost law

that requires public dis-

closure and protects public

health and the environment.

   “By turning a blind eye to fracking, California

officials are letting oil companies endanger our air,

our water and our climate,” Kassie Siegel, director of

the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law

Institute, said at the time.

   California wells have been pumping oil for more

than 100 years. As more easily exploited petroleum

deposits have been used up and prices have climbed,

oil companies have turned to fracking to increase

production.

   Enticed by claims that more than 14 billion barrels

of oil are trapped in the state’s Monterey and Santos

                                              

 shale formations, oil and gas companies have

commenced an exploratory drilling and fracking

campaign beneath central and southern California.

These shale formations span 1,700 square miles

across the San Joaquin Valley to the Pacific Ocean,

including the Los Angeles basin, a region

crisscrossed with active earthquake faults.

   Prior to the decision, the agency has been

rubberstamping oil and gas drilling activity,

declaring it exempt from environmental review or

issuing “negative declarations” that such activity

will have “no significant effect” on the

environment, without any study or mention of the

potential impacts from fracking or other drilling

techniques.

  The agency’s new decision moves in the right

direction.

  “Burning fossil fuels has taken its toll on our

planet for far too long. Now the desperate search

for the last remaining drops of oil has reached a

scale that threatens to add even more burden. All

the while, the state regulators responsible for

oversight have been too slow to respond,” said Jim

Metropulos, former senior advocate at Sierra Club.

         

                               —Gordon Nipp, Chapter Vice-Chair

FRACKING: New oi