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Defenders in Action: Defenders Fights to Keep Drilling out of Los Padres
To protect endangered California condors and other wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife is suing the Bush administration over its plans to expand oil and gas drilling in California's Los Padres National Forest.
Defenders, along with two other conservation groups, charges that the plan is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act.
"The Forest Service is claiming that new oil and gas drilling won't cause any harm to wildlife but that's simply not true," says Kim Delfino, Defenders' California program director.
The Forest Service approved the decision to open more than 52,000 acres in the national forest to oil- and gas-leasing two years ago. The project will negatively impact wildlife by allowing surface drilling near the Sespe Condor Sanctuary and the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge. Both areas are critical to the condor's recovery and survival. The decision also allows surface drilling immediately adjacent to several other designated wilderness areas.
Past oil and gas development has already caused significant harm to Los Padres and nearby protected areas. Last January, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum spilled at least 200 gallons of oil and 2,100 gallons of wastewater into Tar Creek, a tributary of federally designated Wild and Scenic Sespe Creek and along the southern boundary of the condor sanctuary. Nearly a dozen other significant spills by oil companies have occurred in this area in the past three years, and an additional spill occurred in the nearby Hopper refuge—an area so important to the condor's recovery it is closed to the public.
"These spills prove that oil drilling is incompatible with the protection of our wild lands," says Delfino. "More drilling on our public lands will only lead to more frequent spills."
