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Conservation Issues of the Ventana Chapter | monterey county
Sierra Club Plans to Comment on Bureau of Land Management Request for Public Review of Oil and Gas Leasing and Development on Federal Lands
January, 2017
On January 5, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released the Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendment and Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for oil and gas leasing and development in the BLM’s Central Coast Field Office, which includes Fresno, Kings, Monterey and San Benito counties for a 90-day public review and comment period.
In 2011, Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit challenging BLM oil and gas leases in Fresno and Monterey counties, arguing that BLM had failed to consider the possibility that these leases would be fracked, and the risks that would entail. We won in 2013, with the court agreeing that BLM had broken the law, with BLM taking a voluntary remand to correct its deficient environmental analysis. That process has been delayed, because BLM's first attempt at a re-do relied on BLM's nationwide fracking rule, which is tied up in a separate lawsuit (we're defending the rule).
Sierra Club is planning to submit comments by the close of the BLM comment period on April 6, 2017 which will be posted on the website.
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