SAN FRANCISCO – The Court of Appeal of the State of California in the 1st Appellate District, Division Five affirmed a lower court’s ruling that denied a biological center’s petition to order a state department to close oil and gas wells.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed the petition against the California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources in 2015 hoping the lower court would demand the instant closure of oil and gas wells that put fluids into underground aquifers. While the center suggested the department was required to fulfill its request via the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Alameda County Superior Court denied the petition in 2016, and the appeals court supported the ruling.
The appeals court pointed out the SDWA says that state programs must require that the water that’s injected underground will not harm sources that provide drinking water. The center and the department disagree on whether the injected water will harm drinking water sources and protect nonexempt aquifers. The appeals court decided to assume that the waters meet the requirements and addressed the real issue of “whether such duties require the department to order the immediate cessation of injections into nonexempt aquifers,” the ruling states.
Judge Barbara Jones
| California Courts
The court said that it’s the department’s responsibility to decide how it wants to protect nonexempt aquifers, not the center’s, even though the only remedy to protect nonexempt aquifers is to ban injections into them.
The department ultimately decided the best solution would be to hone in on the resources that would recognize and stop the injection that are the most dangerous for the aquifers, a plan that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved.
Even though the center said that a memorandum of agreement required the department to stop injections immediately, the appeals court disagreed and pointed out the EPA green-lighted the program and doesn’t give the center the OK to stop all injections. Considering this, the appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision.
Presiding Judge Barbara J.R. Jones authored the opinion. Judge Henry Needham Jr. and Judge Terence Bruiniers concurred.