Environmental groups filed a lawsuit on Nov. 11 accusing federal agencies of failing to adequately analyze the potential risks and impacts of fracking and acidizing on Southern California’s offshore oil platforms, including those in Santa Barbara County.
Back in February, two federal agencies released an environmental review stating that fracking and acidizing don’t significantly impact environments in the Santa Barbara Channel. The Environmental Defense Center (EDC) and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper are now legally challenging that conclusion.
Fracking and acidizing are forms of offshore well stimulation treatments, which inject sand, water, and chemicals into rock formations to fracture or dissolve them and withdraw gas.
EDC senior attorney Brian Segee told the Sun in a previous interview that when the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said offshore well stimulation treatments weren’t impactful to the environment, it “defied common sense.”
“You can debate the extent of impacts or the scope of impacts,” Segee said, “but to say that doing offshore fracking and acidizing with the chemical transportation, the chemical disposal, the acknowledged discharge of billions of gallons of water and fluid into the environment—that it has no environmental impact on everything from marine animals to environmental quality is simply not credible.”
The resulting lawsuit claims that BSEE and BOEM violated the federal Endangered Species Act because they failed to consult with expert wildlife agencies about potential impacts of fracking and acidizing. The suit follows a notice of intent to sue from the environmental groups in August, to which the agencies “failed to respond,” according to an EDC news release.
The lawsuit demands the agencies prepare an environmental impact statement to fully evaluate and disclose potential impacts on the marine environment.
This article appears in Nov 17-24, 2016.