Wildlife & Climate Justice Advocates, Defend Ballona Wetlands, Scored Two Victories in LA Superior Court

Last week the Los Angeles County Superior Court approved Defend Ballona Wetlands' legal motion to amend its petition challenging the California Coastal Commission's approval of fossil fuel well construction that all parties admitted had harmed habitat at the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve, the only State Ecological Reserve in all of LA County. Defend Ballona Wetlands is a community coalition working to protect the wildlife, the landscape and the integrity of this fragile, rare coastal mosaic of habitats on the Los Angeles coast - in the heart of the Pacific Flyway.

Both the Coastal Commission and its ally in this litigation, SoCalGas, attempted to deprive the community coalition working to defend and protect this fragile coastal ecosystem of a legally sound remedy should the Court find that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was violated. At the heart of this Court dispute is the contention by wildlife and climate justice advocates that the Coastal Commission's approval of work on numerous active fossil gas and oil wells are being approved in a segmented fashion, known as "piecemealing" - which is not allowed under the environmental law (CEQA.).

Specifically, work on wells designated as Del Rey-4 and Del Rey-9 were approved in the summer of 2024, and wetlands were destroyed, mobile bright lights were used for weeks (thus, disrupting nocturnal species, such as Burrowing Owls, from their required shelter and feeding needs) and at least one rare plant population was disturbed and likely destroyed.

These two wells were listed in a chart that was included in an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for an industrial alteration plan that is called by the CA Department of Fish & Wildlife a "restoration." That EIR also described the removal and replacement of fossil gas wells on the site as being part of the project. Maps of the SoCalGas-owned lands where replacement wells would be moved to were included in the EIR. In the summer of 2023, however, LA Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled that the EIR was inadequate and ordered that it be decertified unless or until a legally-defensible EIR was approved.

Additionally, as part of that 2023 ruling, the Court ordered there to be an injunction placed on the site (which includes the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve and also several adjacent parcels of land owned by SoCalGas), and his ruling included that "no adverse change or alteration to the physical environment" would be allowed on the site covered by the previously approved EIR.

Both the Coastal Commission and SoCalGas also attempted to strike significant language from Defend Ballona Wetlands' Reply Brief recently submitted to the Court in this case challenging the Coastal Commission's 2024 approval.

Judge Chalfant (by luck of the draw, the same Judge who ruled earlier on the EIR case!) removed this motion from the docket, providing a second victory for the day.

"We're grateful for the Court listening deeply to our lawyer, Jamie Hall of the Channel Law Group, and possibly realizing what these two powerful interests were doing - attempting to throw the kitchen sink at our pubic interest coalition," explained Marcia Hanscom, legal coordinator and community organizer for Defend Ballona Wetlands.

"This is a typical move by big corporate interests - veiled carefully by the government interest - to try to cost the community more and more in legal fees, which often discourages legitimate legal challenges," continued Hanscom.

SACRED LAND:

This land in the Ballona Valley is considered by every known indigenous tribal voice from this coastal area of Los Angeles as being "sacred." In 2004, many hundreds of ancestors of the indigenous tribal groups were disturbed at a site very close to what is now the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve when developers uncovered a cemetery and village site in what was considered a severe desecration of the region.*

Native tribal representatives traveled from all over the west to pray over the site and vowed to stop further desecration of the Ballona Wetlands area.

For years, burials and grave goods from this desecration of this sacred land were stored in metal container boxes until then-LA City Councimember Bill Rosendahl insisted that no further development approvals would even be considered by the City until reburials with proper ceremony be carried out, which finally happened in 2017.

Before the approval of these two fossil gas well projects that would admittedly destroy part of the wetlands and other sensitive habitat, Chief Anthony Redblood Morales of the Gabrieleno Tongva Tribal Council/San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians submitted a clear and strong letter to the Coastal Commission, objecting to their approval of the project.

MORE PROOF OF PIECEMEALING:

Adding to the petitioner's argument are facts that have come to light since the 2024 filing of the Petition for Writ of Mandate by Defend Ballona Wetlands. Those facts include that a subsequent approval of two additional wells listed in the EIR chart were scheduled by the Coastal Commission to be considered for approval, and they were approved in April of this year, over the objection of Defend Ballona Wetlands, Protect Ballona Wetlands and Coastal Lands Action Network - adding to the piecemealing argument. Once the approvals were filed with the State website that tracks CEQA processes, Defend Ballona Wetlands, Protect Ballona Wetlands and environmental scientist Robert van de Hoek, filed a second lawsuit challenging this action by the Coastal Commission.

"It wasn't even a year between the two approvals when SoCalGas came to the Coastal Commission, knowing the public was concerned about the cumulative impacts of these significant construction projects at the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve," exclaimed van de Hoek, a scientist who was trained by the federal government's Interior Department to avoid this type of segmenting of projects when under environmental review.

"The climate impacts alone need to be carefully analyzed, especially given new and ongoing scientific findings, and the only conclusion I can come to is that this very large fossil fuel company and this highly political body of the California Coastal Commission think they are above the law! We had no choice but to challenge these decisions, and the second approval in April only underscores the obvious reason," he continued.

As if desiring to underscore the public interest groups' contentions further, the City of Los Angeles on October 24 of this year, via a Letter of Determination written by the Director of City Planning, issued an approval of yet another fossil gas well construction project for Vidor 15. Defend Ballona Wetlands has appealed this decision to the City of Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission due to the same issues - segmentation of environmental review for basically the same project - that of removing and replacing fossil fuel infrastructure and harming portions of a fragile ecological reserve.

This particular project was not notified to members of the interested public - many of which are well-known to be interested in this space and in the fossil fuel operation's harms to the community and to the ecological reserve. Defend Ballona Wetlands only learned of this approval by the City by chance when a supporter of protecting the Ballona Wetlands observed a sign by the roadside where the public doesn't usually walk and notified the organization about a hearing that was to take place in a few days, which Marcia Hanscom from Defend Ballona Wetlands and one person from SoCalGas participated in.

"These attempts to obtain individual permits for one or two wells at a time - and all in less than an 18-month time span - are obvious efforts to skirt the law. They are expanding their fossil fuel operation in this sensitive area when scientists and local elected leaders have stated that, just like the Aliso Canyon fossil gas operation that caused significant damage and health impacts to local communities, it should be shut down," said Hanscom.

"Additionally, these projects are bringing heavy equipment and machinery into areas where endangered and rare species - like the Belding's Savannah Sparrow - rely on the habitat; this sort of damage was called out as not being allowed by Judge Chalfant when we won our lawsuit against the California Department of Fish & Wildlife. Shocking is the word that comes to mind when we see powerful forces acting as if they don't have to comply with our Courts," exclaimed Hanscom.

The Court hearing for this first lawsuit - the one that scored these couple of victories described at the beginning of this article - will be convened on December 18 at 9 am. The Honorable James C. Chalfant, presiding.

*source: Marcia Hanscom, observer and https://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

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