Environmental groups sue BLM over oil drilling in California

(CN) — Environmentalists claim the Bureau of Land Management approved new oil drilling permits on public land in California’s Central Valley — one of the most polluted areas of the country — while violating laws like the Clean Air Act.

Environmental groups in the suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Fresno, claim that BLM failed to consider factors like air quality, public health and climate impacts when issuing the permits. They also claim BLM didn’t allow for community input from those most affected by the decisions.

“The San Joaquin air basin is one of the most polluted air basins in the country,” said Radhika Kannan, an attorney for Earthjustice. “What makes it worse is oil drilling.”

No hearing date had been set as of Thursday afternoon. A BLM representative couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

According to the groups, BLM has violated mandates imposed under the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Mineral Leasing Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

They are asking that six drilling permits in Kern County be pulled and for a determination that the defendants violated the law. They also want a judge to order BLM to hand over documents requested through the Freedom of Information Act.

Kannan said drilling makes an already polluted area much more difficult to breathe in. The groups say dirty air has caused “devastating” health impacts to communities. Those residents have the most asthma-related emergency room visits, heart attacks and infants with low birth rates in the state.

The plaintiffs — which include the Center for Biological Diversity, the Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth, and the Natural Resources Defense Council — have members who live, work and spend their free time in the affected area.

“They will be adversely affected and irreparably harmed by BLM’s issuance of the drilling permits,” they say. “Plaintiffs’ boards, staff, and members intend to continue to use and enjoy the public lands affected by the challenged drilling permits for recreation, scientific research, aesthetic pursuits, and spiritual renewal frequently and on an ongoing basis in the future.”

Additionally, the drilling permits would hurt air quality and consume water resources, according to the groups. Developing oil wells will hurt them through increased pollutants that affect climate change.

They say BLM is required by the Clean Air Act to determine if air pollution from oil and gas wells it allows will affect air quality. If they will, BLM must mitigate them.

Those evaluations must include information about the emissions for each piece of equipment and truck at a site, and include its assumptions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has criticized BLM for failing to properly calculate emissions from drilling when making a resource management plan, the groups claim.

“To date, BLM has never remedied these flaws, and the San Joaquin Valley still has no adequate (Clean Air Act) review of BLM’s permitting decisions in the region overall, nor any plan for mitigating the pollution impacts,” they added.

Despite these issues, BLM still issues drilling permits for an area that makes 75% of the state’s crude oil and has over 83% of the state’s active wells.

For Kannan, one of the biggest issues is transparency. She said that BLM has failed to contact communities beforehand about the possibility of new drilling. The groups say that BLM never answered requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

“Plaintiffs now bring this challenge to ensure BLM takes a hard look at the impacts of the oil and gas activity it is authorizing and considers reasonable alternatives, before approving additional drilling permits," the groups said in the complaint.

Other defendants include Debra Haaland, secretary of the interior; Karen Mouritsen, California state director of BLM; Gabriel Garcia, field manager of BLM; John Hodge, assistant field manager of minerals with BLM; and the California Resources Production Corporation.