Oil project pulled
May 17, 2020 marks the end of another dirty oil project proposed by Aera Energy, LLC in the Cat Canyon Oil Field in Northern Santa Barbara County, a project that activists have been fighting for many years.
It means hundreds of oil tanker trucks will not flood our local roadways; thousands of native oak trees and threatened wildlife will survive; and our water will not be jeopardized by risky steam injection operations. Our community now celebrates the extraordinary news that our clean air and water will not be put at risk for dirty oil, and in turn we support the community activists and groups who made it happen.
Since 2017, the Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter, our attorneys at the EDC and our many allies throughout the county, have voiced strong opposition to Aera’s dangerous project and two other steam injection projects proposed in Cat Canyon, one by PetroRock LLC and the other by TerraCore (formerly ERG), which is still standing but … (see below).
News that Aera’s risky oil project will not go forward comes on the heels of PetroRock recently abandoning its application to drill and operate hundreds of new wells in Cat Canyon. Together, these three oil projects had been considered one of the largest environmental justice threats in our county’s history.
While TerraCore’s project has yet to be defeated, today’s victory is orders of magnitude more important and consequential.
“A major victory! Aera, which is co-owned by Exxon and Shell, recognized that decision-makers would not rubber stamp their dangerous project and would be taking into account the well-documented impacts to water, air, endangered species and climate, as well as overwhelming community opposition,” said Katie Davis, chair of our Chapter.
“The withdrawal of Aera’s application to produce more dirty oil in SB County is a major step towards the phasing out of fossil fuels and fostering a clean renewable energy future,” said Tara Messing, staff attorney for EDC. “It means one less environmentally-damaging oil project that would have committed our County to decades of fossil fuel energy generation.”
EDC’s work on defeating the three Cat Canyon projects has involved a complex, multi-level strategy, including a large grassroots outpouring of people and groups in opposition. Nearly 500 pages of information was submitted by EDC pointing out numerous omissions and inconsistencies about the project’s impacts from oil spills, fires, greenhouse gas emissions, grading of sensitive habitat, paving, trucking on our local roads, and freshwater usage.
After today, Sierra Club, EDC and our allies now turn the focus to stopping the TerraCore project.EDC and its clients now turn the focus to stopping the TerraCore project.
This remaining threat will add hundreds of new wells to the Field, generate substantial greenhouse gas emissions that severely increase climate risks, may jeopardize drinking water quality in the Santa Maria Groundwater Basin, use thousands of gallons of local freshwater for drilling, and threaten public safety by adding hundreds of tanker truck trips to highways and rural roads.
Views of Cat Canyon valley and the oak covered hills where Aera proposed their polluting cyclic steam project.