Long Beach, state commission sued by environmental group over oil drilling plans - Long Beach Press Telegram

Long Beach, state commission sued by environmental group over oil drilling plans - Press Telegram

Two plans that outline Long Beach’s efforts to produce oil over the next five years, which were recently approved by a state regulatory agency — after some revisions — have been challenged by an environmental organization in court.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a suit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, Sept. 14, against both the city and the California State Lands Commission, in an attempt to force Long Beach to conduct an environmental review of its oil-drilling plans.

Long Beach said in a Thursday statement that it hadn’t been served with the lawsuit yet and declined to provide further information in anticipation of the pending litigation. The SLC also declined to comment on Friday, Sept. 15.

Long Beach is legally mandated to submit to the SLC an annual plan outlining the number of replacement oil wells it predicts drilling, as well as operating expenses for oil production and maintenance of existing facilities, and overall expected oil revenue for a one-year period.

That document accompanies a broader program plan that generally outlines the city’s oil production forecasts for the next five years — also subject to the SLC’s approval.

Long Beach approved both plans earlier this year, and the SLC OK’d them in late May after the city submitted a revised plan as requested by the commission.

The lawsuit, though, argues that Long Beach has never conducted a review of its oil drilling plans to determine their potential impacts on the environment and public health — and that the state commission has failed to require the city to do so prior to its own approval of the plans.

While Long Beach declined to comment on the lawsuit, city spokesperson Jennifer De Prez did say the town is serious about being a steward for the environment.

“In the course of our duties as the trustee for the State of California in operating the oil field,” De Prez said Thursday, “the city takes our environmental responsibilities incredibly seriously and follows all state requirements for approving oil management plans and required environmental approvals.”

Long Beach’s oil production program plans largely revolve around oil operations in the Long Beach Unit, which was officially formed in 1965 and consists of the eastern offshore portion of the Wilmington Oil Field, including the THUMS islands — the four man-made drilling islands along the city’s shoreline.

Each island is about 10 acres. They are jointly controlled by the city, the state and THUMS, the latter of which was originally an amalgamation of the Texaco, Humble, Union, Mobil and Shell oil companies but is now overseen by the California Resources Corporation.

This year’s approved annual plan calls for drilling 33 new, or replacement, oil wells in Long Beach, which are necessary to ensure the ground around existing wells doesn’t sink, Long Beach city staffers said previously — and to ensure the oil field is profitable enough to contribute to the city’s General and Tidelands Operating Funds.

Over the next five years, though, the plan anticipates more than 100 drilling activities, including extracting more than 26.2 million barrels of oil, according to the Thursday complaint, and 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas production.

The lawsuit, meanwhile, argues that because thousands of residents live within 3,200 feet of the Long Beach Unit and its associated oil drilling activities, the plan should be required to undergo an extensive review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

“It’s outrageous that Long Beach has never conducted an environmental review of its oil and gas operations,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney Emily Jeffers said in a news release. “California has a strong bedrock environmental and health protection law. The city needs to comply with the law and do its duty to protect Californians from oil and gas pollution.”

The negative environmental and health impacts of oil and gas production are well documented — and are currently the subject of a legislative push that’s been stymied by opponents.

Senate Bill 1137 would ban new oil wells within 3,200 feet of locations including schools, homes, day care and health care centers, parks, jails and businesses open to the public.

Many of Long Beach’s own oil drilling operations within the unit would be impacted by that law, which was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and went into effect on Jan. 1.

But that law has been put on hold since its opponents gathered more than 600,000 signatures asking the Secretary of State’s office to allow voters to either approve or deny the new regulations.

California can’t enforce SB 1137 until voters have their say on the new rules during the Nov. 5, 2024, general election.

If approved next year, the law wouldn’t go into effect until early 2025, and cities, including Long Beach, would be required to come into compliance with its new rules two years later — which could seriously alter the oil production expectations outlined in the city’s plan.

At least half of the Long Beach Unit’s oil wells would be directly impacted by the passage of SB 1137, Long Beach’s Energy Resources Department director, Bob Dowell, wrote in the city’s May 25 program plan revision to the SLC.

It would also limit the city’s ability to maintain existing wells, Dowell wrote, alongside the redrilling, repair and maintenance of existing oil operations.

But it’s unclear whether voters will approve that law. And in the meantime, the center’s lawsuit argues, the general public has a right to know about the potential harms from ongoing oil production in the Long Beach Unit.

“The law holds public agencies to strict environmental review requirements,” the center’s Thursday news release said, “to ensure that affected communities get full information about a project’s harms and the right to participate in approval decisions.”

Dowell’s May program plan revision, though, argued that the Long Beach Unit isn’t the main source of pollution for the city.

The Long Beach Unit’s emissions in 2022, Dowell said, made up less than 1/700th of the total nitrogen oxide emissions and less than 1/2,000th of the volatile organic compound, particulate matter, sulfur oxide and carbon monoxide emissions in the entire jurisdiction overseen by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which includes LA, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“Every barrel of oil not produced in California requires import, most of which arrives through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,” Dowell wrote. “These two ports are significant sources of air pollution in the region.”

Long Beach has also declared its intent to end new oil extraction by 2035 and end its reliance on revenue from the practice that same year.

Long Beach officials, including members of the City Council, have also repeatedly cited previous action taken to address climate change and oil production concerns, including the recently approved Grow Long Beach Initiative and the city’s Climate Action Plan, as evidence of its commitment to environmental solutions.

The Center for Biological Diversity and many other environmental advocates, though, say they aren’t quite convinced.

“Drilling for oil and gas is a dirty business,” Jeffers said. Long Beach claims to be moving toward a zero-carbon future, but the emissions that will come from this drilling are a huge carbon bomb that the city isn’t acknowledging.”

The center also filed a separate lawsuit regarding Long Beach’s oil drilling in May, though that litigation challenges California Geologic Energy Management Division’s oil drilling permitting processes.

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