A slew of health and environmental groups are suing the Bureau of Land Management over its approval of permits for new oil and gas drilling on Central California’s public lands - which is home to some of the country’s most polluted cities.
A complaint filed in the U.S. Eastern District Court of California claims that the federal agency’s decision is at the expense of public health, the environment and the law. It adds that the bureau had never analyzed the harms of its well approvals on nearby communities.
“The law requires the BLM to look at big-picture pollution impacts when it approves a bunch of new drilling permits in the same oil fields on the same day,” Michelle Ghafar, an attorney at Earthjustice, said in a statement announcing the move. “These wells don’t exist in a vacuum, and neither do the people who are forced to endure years of polluted air that makes them and their families sick.”
The bureau told The Independent on Wednesday that it does not comment on pending litigation.
The groups lambasted the bureau’s actions, saying that they had unlawfully divided the collective harm that nearly 30 more wells would do to the San Joaquin Valley, obscuring the greater harms of the approvals in “one of the most polluted areas of the country.”
The San Joaquin Valley is home to large productions of oil, warehouse distribution and agriculture.
The area is home to the cities of Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield.
“Most of the new wells will be drilled near homes and residential areas, in direct violation of California’s new oil and gas setbacks law that prohibits drilling within 3,200 feet of sensitive locations to protect public health,” they alleged. “The Bureau of Land Management also rubberstamped its approvals without allowing public comment, in violation of federal law.”
The suit accuses the bureau of violating the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the Mineral Leasing Act.
It notes that the San Joaquin Valley air basin’s Kern County exceeds safe thresholds for ozone and particulate matter on nearly a third of all days in the year, and that the American Lung Association found cities there to be among the most polluted in the nation. One in six children in the San Joaquin Valley has asthma — the highest level in California, according to Fresno’s Community Care Health.
The negative health impacts there disproportionately impact low-income residents and minorities, officials say. Of the more than 914,000 Kern County residents, nearly 80 percent of those living near wells are people of color and low-income residents.
In the past, wells there leaked the greenhouse gas methane at explosive levels, according to the Palm Springs Desert Sun. Residents in Bakersfield reported negative health impacts from the elevated levels.
When gas leaks or is burned from wells, cancer-causing compounds and other gases are released that can be harmful to the lungs, and form smog that causes respiratory and cardiovascular distress, the American Lung Association explains.
Drilling oil and gas can leak methane and other toxins that impact the valley’s air, water and soil, said Jasmine Vazin, deputy director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign.
“The San Joaquin Valley deserves better — the BLM needs to follow the law and put residents first,” she said.
