Appeal Challenges Permit Extending Oil Extraction in Alameda County

OAKLAND, Calif., June 1, 2018 — Community and environmental groups submitted an appeal today urging the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to reverse the approval of a permit that extends oil extraction in the county’s only active oilfield. The Bakersfield-based oil company that operates the oilfield has a history of spills and violations across California.

“The Board of Supervisors can, and must, shut down this dangerous operation that’s been threatening our water for too long,” said Deborah McQueen, a local resident and member of Livermore Eco Watchdogs. “Alameda County needs to bring this chapter of fossil fuel extraction to a close and start putting our health and environment first.”

E&B Natural Resources, which operates in California, Louisiana, Kansas and Wyoming, applied for a 10-year permit to extend and expand its operations at the Livermore oilfield. Last week the Alameda East County Board of Zoning Adjustments approved the permit, despite hundreds of residents voicing their opposition to the project.

“This permit would lock Livermore into another decade of dirty oil drilling,” said Jason Pfeifle, a climate campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “And given its disturbing track record of spills and accidents, this polluter shouldn’t get any more chances to harm the community and the climate.”

In 2015 Alameda County officials reported a spill of toxic fluid at E&B’s Livermore site, which contaminated 12 feet of soil that had to be removed. E&B was fined for failing to report the spill and disposing of the soil without testing for hazardous chemicals.

The company has reported at least 48 spills of oil or other hazardous materials in four different California counties since 2007, according to records from the California Office of Emergency Services.

E&B has simultaneously sought state and federal approval to nearly triple the area of the Livermore aquifer into which it can inject toxic wastewater. The company has also added plans to acquire a state permit for an extraction technique called waterflooding, which uses pressure from injecting wastewater to push oil up to the surface.

E&B’s previous permit expired in January 2018. If the Board of Supervisors reverses approval of the new permit, E&B will need to cease its Livermore operations, ending fossil fuel extraction in the county.


The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.6 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.


http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/livermore-oilfield-06-01-2018.php