An Oil Exploration Company has filed legal action against the county of San Benito. Citadel Exploration wants the county to pay 1.2 billion dollars for limiting land access. The company had plans to extract millions of barrels of oil from south San Benito county fields, by using fracking, but Project Indian never got approved because of the Measure J fracking ban (that was approved by voters last November). Local authorities say that they believe the courts will uphold Measure J because it is legal and defensible, and it’s based on the authority of local governments to use zoning and land use laws to limit heavy industrial activities such as drilling for oil and gas.
