An oil drilling pumpjack seen from Santa Paula Canyon Trail.
Ventura, Calif. – Environmental groups presented their opening arguments today in the California Court of Appeals, asking a three-judge panel to require additional environmental review before allowing the expansion of oil drilling in Santa Paula Canyon.
The groups’ 58-page brief outlines their legal and factual reasons for appealing a lower court’s ruling that allowed 19 new oil wells and continued operation of 17 existing wells to proceed with minimal environmental review. The new oil wells would be located along the Santa Paula Canyon Trail, a popular hiking trail that serves as a gateway to waterfalls, swimming holes, backcountry campsites and endangered species habitat in the Los Padres National Forest.
An oil pipeline stretches over Santa Paula Creek.
Despite objections from nearly 1,000 hikers and local residents, as well as overwhelming expert scientific testimony, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors narrowly approved the oil wells on a split 3-2 vote in 2015, relying in large part on an outdated environmental impact report prepared in 1978.
Los Padres ForestWatch, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Citizens for Responsible Oil & Gas then filed suit in Ventura County Superior Court over the county’s failure to conduct a new study of the environmental risks of the project. That court ruled in favor of the oil company and the County earlier this year. The groups’ appeal, filed in the Second District Court of Appeals in Ventura, seeks a review of that decision before a three-judge panel.
An oil pad in Santa Paula Canyon directly adjacent to the hiking trail.
In their appeal, the groups argue that the county failed to evaluate and reduce significant noise, visual and public-safety impacts that oil drilling expansion would cause to hikers on the trail. The county further neglected to fully consider the risks posed by oil spills from a pipeline directly above steelhead habitat in Santa Paula Creek, contaminants draining from the drill site into the creek and California condors that are nesting in the canyon for the first time in more than a half-century.
The appeal also alleges that the county failed to enforce mitigation measures and conditions of approval that had originally been placed on the project to lessen its potential environmental damage.
The appeal urges the court to place the drilling project on hold until an adequate review is conducted to fully disclose all of the risks and damages of drilling.
The groups are represented by the law firm of Chatten-Brown & Carstens of Los Angeles.
The County of Ventura and the oil company – Carbon California – will have an opportunity to respond to the groups’ arguments. A hearing before the three-judge panel could take place in early 2019 with a decision expected later that year.
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