In 2013 , Truthout journalist Mike Ludwig unearthed with a Freedom of Information Act request with the Interior Department revealed that fracking technology was being used on offshore oil rigs in the ecologically sensitive Santa Barbara Channel . Coastal conservationists were alarmed , and environmental groups sprang into action , generating protests and broad public discussion about offshore fracking . At one point , lawsuits filed by environmental groups forced federal officials to place a moratorium on offshore fracking in the Channel while regulators reviewed the practice and their rules for making it safe . In 2014 , the EPA issued a new rules requiring offshore drillers to disclose fracking chemicals they dump into the ocean off the California coast . In 2016 , a Truthout investigation revealed commonplace fracking in the Gulf of Mexico , where offshore oil and gas drillers used fracking technology to maximize oil and gas production in aging undersea wells . A story broken by journalist Mike Ludwig revealed that the Obama administration had rubber-stamped 1,500 permit modifications to allow fracking in the Gulf of Mexico and had routinely excluded the practice from in-depth environmental reviews — even during the initial days of the Deepwater Horizon disaster . That investigation shined a critical light on industry 's practice of mixing toxic fracking chemicals with drilling wastewater and dumping it directly into shallow waters of the Gulf . This practice was the subject of further legal challenges from environmental groups
Deepwater Horizon disaster
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
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