In its haste to allow as much fracking as possible in the Gulf, the Obama administration has repeatedly failed to release information about the dangers of fracking in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as information regarding the total number of permits that have been issued.
But a new lawsuit by The Center for Biological Diversity seeks to make that information public.
The lawsuit says that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement are obligated to release this information to the public. The government has so far failed to respond to the group’s FOIA request to make this information known to the public.
The risks of offshore fracking are well known, and The Center for Biological Diversity has a report that details the dangers that have already been realized off the coast of California, where offshore fracking has been under way for some time.
In that report, the Center uncovered some disturbing trends about the wastewater that is created during fracking:
*Half of the oil platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel discharge all or a portion of their produced water, including fracking chemicals, into the ocean. The federal government has given oil companies permission to dump more than 9 billion gallons of wastewater a year into the ocean off California’s coast.
*When wastewater is not dumped into the ocean, it is reinjected into the seafloor or transported for onshore underground injection. Even this disposal method can result in leaks. For example, 30 percent of offshore oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico experienced well casing damage in the first five years after drilling, and damage increased over time to 50 percent after 20 years. Loss of well casing integrity is one of the main pathways for contamination of ground and surface waters.
Read more at Obama Administration Sued over Gulf of Mexico Fracking
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