A government bureau wants to open up one million acres of central California land to more fracking, but an Earthjustice lawsuit shows that the bureau needs to think before it acts.

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board opted not to stop a corporation from tainting groundwater with fracking waste until 2018.

As water supplies dry up, groundwater drilling is leading to collapsed bridges, cracked irrigation canals and pipes, and twisted roads and railways. In some places, the ground is sinking nearly one foot a year.

With severe drought conditions predicted for winter, California’s Gov. Brown is demanding that state agencies immediately scale back water consumption, while urging Californians to reduce water use by 20 percent. Yet, contrary to enforcing water conservation, Brown recently gave the ‘green light’ to fracking California’s Monterey Shale—a process that consumes vast quantities of water.

Judge rules that passage of California’s Senate Bill 4 stops environmental review case

State has abdicated responsibility, should expect an uptick in local bans

Avoiding alcohol and caffeine are standard recommendations for a pregnant women. No surprise there! The simple and effective way of keeping infants safe is stripping the environment toxins that cause low birth weight, birth defects, respiratory problems, cancer and fertility problems. Yet the most common substances used to frack for natural gas are cancer-causing agents.…

As reported in the current issue of Earthjustice Quarterly Magazine, oil fracking has become big news in California, where the practice is conducted in the shadows and is essentially unregulated—the Wild Wild West, if you will. (See: Extreme Energy: Out of Control Out West) That may be about to change. At least 10 bills have…

Just as clean, renewable energy is lifting off and the impacts of climate disruption become ever more visible, fossil energy production is becoming dramatically more extreme. But extreme fossil energy production is exactly what we don’t need. In just the last two years, I have seen the Louisiana coast’s oil-slicked marshes after the Deepwater Horizon…

The technological advance of horizontal drilling was a game changer for the oil and gas industry. When oil and natural gas were previously being harvested, vertical drilling was the only way to extract the fossil fuel. With horizontal drilling, wells can now be fracked and re-fracked, at different depths and in all directions. By increasing…

Here’s what we know: Fracking is already happening in California. Based on the oil and gas industry’s own admission, there were 600 wells that were fracked in 2011 alone. Here’s what we don’t know: exactly where, when, or what chemicals the oil and gas industry is blasting into the ground during fracking. What makes matters…

The country is in the midst of an oil and gas drilling boom, aided by the controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking.” As fracking has increased, reports of poisoned water, polluted air and other environmental harms are also on the rise. In California, where fracking is accelerating, rubber-stamped permits for…

Conservation groups demand state regulators enforce existing law to protect public health, environment

Along with the unprecedented oil and gas drilling rush, have come troubling reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, industrial disasters and explosions: “Fraccidents.”