A Kern County judge ruled that approval of California’s first operating carbon capture and storage project — a technology the state is counting on to meet its climate goals — violated state environmental law and must be set aside.

Judge Marcos Camacho found that environmental review of California Resources Corp.’s TerraVault project, which Kern County supervisors approved in October 2024, fell short in several ways. Among them, it failed to analyze the industries expected to supply the project with carbon dioxide.

Because the judgment is not yet final, it’s not clear when CRC must stop injecting carbon dioxide and suspend the facility’s operations. A real-time project tracker on the company’s website indicates that carbon injection continues.

Carbon TerraVault 1 — the first of at least nine carbon storage projects the company plans around the state — is designed to collect up to 46 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to CRC. The company is injecting carbon deep underground in a Kern County oil field to keep it from warming the atmosphere. The project began operating earlier this year after a lengthy and controversial approval process.