Andrus

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

This case concerns three oil drilling and production platforms proposed for the Santa Barbara Channel. Plaintiffs are nonprofit California environmental corporations and Yvon and Melinda Chouinard, owners of a beach front home in Ventura, California. Defendants include the Secretary of the Interior and officials of the United States Geological Survey, an agency within the Department of the Interior. Intervening defendants are seven major oil companies holding oil and gas development leases in the channel. Those leases were awarded by the Department of the Interior pursuant to a public sale conducted in 1968.

In 1977, the Department of the Interior, through the United States Geological Survey, approved development plans submitted by Chevron, Sun Oil, and Mobil Oil for three oil drilling and production platforms — Platform Grace, Platform Henry, and Mobil Platform — for the Santa Barbara Channel. The implementation of each development plan is subject to close monitoring and supervision by the Geological Survey through its inspection and certification procedures. Before approving each development plan, the Geological Survey prepared an environmental…