A fracking lawsuit

Conservation groups have filed a lawsuit demanding California state regulators uphold existing law to protect public health and the environment from hydraulic fracturing.

Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental-law firm, filed the lawsuit on Oct. 16 on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, Environmental Working Group and the Sierra Club, according to Scoop San Diego. Oil and gas companies have begun exploratory drilling in Central and Southern California, drawn by claims of the presence of oil in the Monterey and Santos shale formations.

The groups maintain fracking—which involves injecting water and numerous chemicals into wells at high pressure—is a carbon-intensive process at odds with the state’s goals of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

“Developing these extreme fossil-fuel resources is like lighting the fuse on a carbon bomb that will shatter California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity.