The City of Carson declaring a local emergency, a resolution City Council says is aimed at forcing Shell into action. It"s turned into an all out fight between a small city and a huge world wide oil company.

Read more: http://www.myfoxla.com/story/22962385/carson-demands-shell-cleam-up-toxic-soil#ixzz2aY1xm34y

A Venoco platform off the coast of Santa Barbara.

A Truthout investigation has confirmed that federal regulators approved at least two hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," operations on oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel off the coast of California since 2009 without an updated environmental review that critics say may be required by federal law.  


In 2012, Truthout reported that an oil company called Venoco had quietly used fracking technology to stimulate oil production in an old well off the coast of Santa Barbara in early 2010. A Freedom of Information Act request recently filed by Truthout has confirmed the Venoco operation and revealed that another firm had since received permission for fracking in the Santa Barbara channel, which is home to the Channel Islands marine reserve.

This year, federal regulators approved an application by the Ventura-based company DCOR LLC to use fracking technology known as "frack pack" in a sandstone well 1,500 feet from a seismic fault in the outer continental shelf off the California coast, according to the documents released by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the federal agency that permits offshore drilling...

Truthout has confirmed that regulators approved both the Venoco and DCOR LLC frack jobs by signing off on modifications to existing drilling permits. The regulators claim that they review all applications for environmental concerns, but environmentalists say that they did not produce the kind of detailed assessment of the potential impacts that modern fracking technology could have on ocean environments that is required by the federal law.

"It's completely illegal for the agency to approve fracking in the outer continental shelf without conducting a complete environmental impact statement," said Kassie Siegal, a senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, after learning about the offshore fracking.

Click here to read the FULL Story at TruthOut

A map showing federal and state land in Utah that was made available for drilling.

“This citizen intervention is necessary because the Department of Interior is sending mixed messages to the public. On one day, the administration issues a statement that the Colorado River's critical water supply will be protected for people and habitat, and then on another day they announce the most carbon intensive mining practice on the planet can move forward,” said John Weisheit, conservation director with Living Rivers. “The two programs are not mutually beneficial. Interior has to protect the Colorado River, there is no other choice.”

In March the BLM amended 10 resource-management plans, making 687,600 acres available for oil shale leasing and 132,100 acres available for tar sands leasing. The agency refused to conduct formal consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect endangered species, as required by the Endangered Species Act, despite acknowledging likely impacts to those species.

“The Endangered Species Act requires agencies to consult with the experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service when they know listed species will be impacted,” said Matt Sandler, a staff attorney at Rocky Mountain Wild. "BLM has skipped this step, which will push these species closer to extinction."

To read the full press release Click HERE

Los Padres National Forest is one of the top places in America considered "too wild to drill,"according to a new report from The Wilderness Society. It highlights a dozen of the nation's most unique landscapes that it says are threatened by oil and gas drilling.

The Los Padres forest not only provides drinking water to the Santa Barbara area but also is well-known for two iconic animals, said Warren Alford, California regional representative for The Wilderness Society.

"The last [wild] California condor was captured here and became part of a successful reintroduction program," said Alford, "and the last California grizzly bear was captured and killed. And that's just an indication of how wild and how rugged this area is, and it's simply too wild to drill."


The oil industry already has 180 operating wells in less sensitive parts of the forest, including the Sespe Oil Field in Ventura County. Another 52,000 acres could be opened up to oil drilling in the future.
Click here to read the full article at KCET