Judge Rules Obama Administration Overlooked Fracking Risks in California Mineral Leases

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

Judge rules Obama administration overlooked fracking risks in California mineral leases

By Rory Carroll

Tue Apr 9, 2013 1:11am EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal judge has ruled the Obama administration broke the law when it issued oil leases in central California without fully weighing the environmental impact of "fracking," a setback for companies seeking to exploit the region's enormous energy resources.

The decision, made public on Monday, effectively bars for the time being any drilling on two tracts of land comprising 2,500 acres leased for oil and gas development in 2011 by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (in Monterey County.

The tracts lie atop a massive bed of sedimentary rock known as the Monterey Shale Formation, estimated by the Energy Department to contain more than 15 billion barrels of oil, equal to 64 percent of the total U.S. shale oil reserves.

Most of that oil is not economically retrievable except by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a production-boosting technique in which large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are injected into shale formations to force hydrocarbon fuels to the surface.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE93803720130409

[ReRe]

1. Wait a minute...

... fracking on the faults? WTF?

[Left Coast2020]

2. You mean this is on a friggin fault line?

Write that judge and let him know. Thats a disaster waiting to happen.

[Hekate]

3. Ugh. Californians will have something to say about this, all right

Oil companies make terrible, terrible neighbors, as we Santa Barbarians know.

[Le Taz Hot]

4. Thank goddess!

I've been SO worried about this. I tried to get interest up about this in the California forum but, well, we're not in an important part of the state so there was 0 interest. I know that in Central California we live in a "cesspool" (or so I'm told by the person who lives on the coast and declared anything 60 miles east or farther from the California coastline a "cesspool&quot it's OUR "cesspool" and we grow your goddamned food so it might be of interest to the rest of the state/country/world.

Plus we get our water from groundwater which fracking contaminates. I know, it's only a bunch of Mexicans and other cesspool-living riff raff but we do contribute significantly to the state and if you can't have compassion for the people who live here perhaps we can appeal to your greedy side and understand that if contamination occurs, a major California income source will dry up.

This is a MAJOR victory for us. MAJOR!

[pmorlan1]

5. No National Security Exemption Here

You mean they didn't try to claim a national security exemption to get the case thrown out of Court?

[Sunlei]

6. so much drilling/fracking out there in Monterey and Kern county

The BLM has leased out Americas public lands under their 'multi-use' policy for years.

Those lands are fragile and very dry, where are they getting the water to frack with?

Those are ALL Americans public lands and I don't see any $$return to the American public from these leases? seems the leases just cost us in federal funds and don't benefit anyone except the oil/fracking companies.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

7. This is a fucking no brainer --

California is criss crossed with fault lines -- MOST OF WHICH ARE UNKNOWN. Loma Prieta? Unknown fault line. Northridge? Unknown fault line. Now that is is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that fracking CAUSES earthquakes, the idea of opening up such a geologically sensitive area to something that could trigger a quake -- IN FUCKING CALIFORNIA -- is madness.

Thank you judge -- this San Franciscan will sleep a little bit easier tonight.

[byeya]

8. I own this land - and so do you - and I don't want any fracking on it anywhere.

"Obama administration broke the law"...and not for the first time by a long shot either