In early April, two federal agencies canceled permits to drill eight new oil and gas wells that included the potentially polluting use of chemical fracking on land within the southeastern portion of the Los Padres National Forest.
Oil exploration planned since 2013 in an area within the Sespe Oil Field, four miles north of Fillmore in Ventura County, will not take place, announced the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The cancelation of permits filed by Texas-based oil company Seneca Resources more than 10 years ago came as a result of pressure from 2,000 petitioners, letters from environmental groups and California’s looming statewide ban on fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process in which water, rocks, sand and chemicals are injected into wells to stimulate oil and gas extraction.
The practice has faced public scrutiny in the Sespe area and in oil fields in Los Angeles County, led by concerns that hundreds of chemicals used in fracking are toxic and could seep into underground aquifers that store drinking water, or contaminate surface streams and rivers, according to state agencies and environmental groups.
“This announcement closes the chapter on a toxic and dangerous legacy of fracking in the Sespe,” said Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch, a group that has fought oil drilling and fracking in the forest and helped mobilize opposition to drilling permits.
“Some of these chemicals used (for fracking) are not disclosed and the ones that are disclosed are known carcinogens and some cause birth defects,” Kuyper said.
In February, the state Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) said in a draft rule that it will no longer approve hydraulic fracturing permits, citing environmental concerns.
The Western States Petroleum Association said the action exceeded CalGEM’s authority and overlooked years of safe hydraulic fracturing operations.
Experts say the cancelation of the eight drilling permits is a step toward California’s goal to reduce greenhouse gases that cause climate change, which has intensified storms and wildfires and extended urban heat spells. By not drilling, methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is not released said Lisa Belenky, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, a group that advocated for the permit cancelations.
“For at least 10 years, we’ve been working to end fracking in California and to roll back oil and gas drilling in the state for almost 20 years,” Belenky said. “Anytime you are drilling new oil and gas wells, the whole purpose is to burn it,” she said. As fossil fuels are used in power plants, factories, ships and automobiles, this results in emissions of smog precursors as well as GHGs (greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.
Often, new oil wells are abandoned and become what are known as orphan wells, which can continue to produce emissions, Belenky said.
New oil wells in this part of the Los Padres National Forest are particularly troublesome because the activity would have been adjacent to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary, where biologists are working to help breed and reestablish these endangered, large birds in the wilds of the Los Padres and western Angeles national forests, Kuyper said.
The California condor is the most endangered bird in North America. It is also the largest, with a wingspan of about nine feet. Its survival is threatened by oil field production near its breeding grounds in the Los Padres National Forest. (photo courtesy of The Peregrine Fund)
The sanctuary is the best habitat for California condors, Gymnogyps californianus, in the state, Kuyper said. At the sanctuary, the condors nest and produce chicks, which are eventually released into the wild. There are only about 200 condors in the entire state, he said.
“Since they only lay one egg every couple of years, any noises or intensive activity close to the nesting areas have the potential to interrupt their basic needs,” Kuyper said. “It could affect breeding.”
The fracking and oil drilling was proposed near the site of a massive oil spill that occurred in 2008, polluting three miles of mountain stream and causing long-term environmental damage. (photo courtesy of Los Padres ForestWatch)
In the past, oil spills from the fields have oiled the fledgling California condors, which when grown are the largest birds in North America, Belenky explained.
California condors, both here and in wild areas near Santa Clarita, swoop down when they see a shiny object and ingest it. Often the objects are metal strips from oil wells, shards of glass or other trash. “Mylar strips are everywhere in construction. It gets inside them and they could die,” Belenky said.
Oil drilling does not occur in other Southern California forests such as the Angeles, Cleveland and San Bernardino, mostly because there are no oil deposits in those areas, said Kuyper. Oil drilling, mining or any mineral extraction is not permitted in a monument such as the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
Kuyper said the impetus behind cancelling oil drilling can be applied to other areas and places in Southern California. In this case it took a decade of opposition.
“It is a good lesson on the ability of the public to weigh in and help influence decisions that affect public land. That principle applies everywhere,” he said.
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