Ojai Valley News
Published February 18, 2004

Bush seeks Los Padres oil — Coalition forms to halt drilling in national forest

By Jesse Phelps

Even as Casitas Municipal Water District constructs a fish ladder that would allow access for endangered steelhead to Matilija Creek and more of the Ventura River and even as the nearly extinct California condor attempts to make a comeback, President George W. Bush has decided that he, too, wants use of their home territory, the Los Padres National Forest.

Legislation forwarded by the president seeks to open up much of the forest to exploration and drilling, according to several published reports. The National Forest Service, according to a draft Environmental Impact Statement passed out at a recent meeting in Santa Barbara, is working with the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management to analyze land to potentially lease for oil and gas exploration, development and production. A final decision will be released in late spring.

A press conference will be held this morning at 11 a.m. in Santa Barbara introducing legislation authored by U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) banning new oil and gas drilling in the forest. The Coalition To Save Los Padres, a group that includes concerned citizens from around the region, will hold the conference, which will include speeches by Capps, Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum, Ventura County Board of Supervisors Chair Steve Bennett and Ojai resident Gary Bulla, a flyfisherman and environmental activist.

According to event organizers, the Bush administration plans to open as much as 140,000 acres of the forest to oil and gas drilling could destroy vital habitat for many threatened and endangered species, including the nearly extinct California condor.

According to a report by Keith Hammond of the Progressive Media Project, "Only about 35 wild condors survive in the state - all in the Los Padres - and they've laid only three eggs in the wild since 1987; two of these eggs were found just last year in a roadless area now proposed for oil leasing."

Erin Duffy, an organizer of the Santa Barbara event, said she believes that drilling could be the undoing of the effort to save the condor. "It's a silly idea to think about it with $40 million invested in the condor recovery program," she said.

Named by the California Wilderness Coalition as one of California's Top 10 Endangered Wild Places, the Los Padres is home to roughly 20 different endangered species. The Los Padres embodies 1,969,520 acres extending approximately 220 miles from the Point Sur area south to Ojai. An estimated 84 million barrels of oil and 36 billion cubic feet of natural gas are contained in the southern portion of the forest. Bulla said that the negative effects of increased drilling are already apparent in other areas of the country. "Gas is leaking into potable water aquafers," he said.

"Ranchers and some of the real old conservative families are uniting with those they call the wacko environmentalists," he said. Today's press conference is open to the public and will be held at the Santa Barbara Courthouse, at the entrance to the Sunken Gardens.

Bennett said he's speaking because "it doesn't make common sense to virtually abandon logical efforts at fuel conservation and then risk impacts to our quality of life for a miniscule amount of oil."

THREE CONDORS were born in Los Padres National Forest in 2003.

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