LOS ANGELES (CN) — The recent oil spill near Huntington Beach, California, proves a 2017 government analysis of the risk to endangered species from oil and gas drilling off the California coast was based on false assumptions about the size of potential spills, according to a new lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity.
New oil and gas drilling permits off California's coast should be suspended until the Interior Department and the responsible federal agencies have adequately analyzed the risk to humpback whales, blue whales, sperm whales, leatherback sea turtles, black abalone, and other threatened and endangered species, according to the complaint filed Wednesday in Los Angeles.
“Endangered whales and other marine life have faced oil spill after oil spill off California’s coast, and the federal government has failed to protect them,” Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the center, said in a statement. “These imperiled animals shouldn’t have to suffer and die because the oil industry is fouling our ocean waters."
A robust, science-based analysis would show that drilling off California is too risky to wildlife and the climate and should be phased out quickly, she said.
An Interior Department spokesperson had no comment on the lawsuit.
The oil spill this past October came from a ruptured pipeline which released about 25,000 gallons of crude oil off the beaches of Orange County, California.
The size of the spill demonstrated that a 2017 Endangered Species Act analysis by the Trump administration, which found that that drilling off the state’s coast would not adversely affect threatened and endangered wildlife, was wrong because that analysis was based on the assumption that an oil spill was unlikely and would be limited to 8,400 gallons if one occurred, the center said.
The U.S. Coast Guard has said the Huntington Beach oil spill occurred when a 16-inch pipeline running from several offshore oil rigs to a processing plant in Long Beach was damaged by a 1,200-foot cargo ship dragging its anchor in rough seas. However, the pipeline did not tear until months later.
Since the spill, several oil sheens have been reported off Huntington Beach and at least one is believed to have come from another offshore pipeline, the center said. These incidents follow a long list of other oil industry spills and problems along the coast and across California, including the massive 2015 Refugio oil spill near Santa Barbara.
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