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Bill Aims to Ban Oil Drilling in Los Padres

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Times Staff Writer

The distant battles between wilderness advocates and the oil and gas industry have, until now, played out across a handful of Rocky Mountain states. But a Bush administration plan to allow oil drilling in proposed wilderness areas in the Los Padres National Forest near here has brought that fight to Southern California.

U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) on Wednesday discussed proposed legislation that would ban drilling in the Los Padres, where the U.S. Forest Service plans to open energy exploration in areas earmarked for inclusion in Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s proposed California wilderness bill.

Capps vowed to “slam the door shut” to new leases in the sprawling forest, which stretches along the Pacific Coast from Ventura County to Big Sur and is the only national forest in the state that currently has oil and gas development.

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“This administration is preparing to open up miles and miles of the Los Padres to new oil and gas development,” Capps said at a news conference. She invoked the region’s long struggles to restrict offshore oil drilling and said that the fight has moved from sea to land.

“I think it’s time they hear from us directly that we do not want new oil and gas drilling on the Central Coast: Not off our shores and not in our forests.”

The campaign to bar further drilling has spawned a broad coalition of unlikely allies here, as it has elsewhere in the West on public lands. A new kind of activist has emerged: Hunters complain that wildlife is adversely affected by development, anglers worry about the fouling of rivers and streams, and ranchers say their cattle cannot coexist with oil and gas equipment.

Local fishermen, business owners, recreation backers, conservationists and representatives of the Chumash tribe spoke in support of Capps’ bill, which was introduced last week. Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) co-sponsored the bill.

Opponents of drilling spoke Wednesday of the area’s unique rugged landscape, to which urban residents flock on weekends. Many testified to the forest’s value for recreation and solitude. The Los Padres had 3.6 million visitors in 2002 and is one of the state’s most heavily used forests.

The forest is also home to 20 threatened or endangered plants and animals, including the California condor, which was reintroduced in the Sespe Wilderness.

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Nearly 48% of the Los Padres is set aside as wilderness; no new leases would be allowed in those areas, Forest Service officials said.

However, many of the potential drilling areas are included in House and Senate bills that call for federal wilderness designations to 14 additional areas in the forest. A proposal sponsored by Boxer would convert 58,000 acres to wilderness, a designation that would preserve the wild character of the land.

“Where do you draw the line?” said Mati Waiya, of the Chumash tribe, pointing to a map of the forest. “We need to draw it on this mountain. We need to draw it on these hills and valleys. It is our moral obligation.”

The Forest Service plan studied 760,000 acres in the 1.76 million-acre forest for potential new leasing. The agency identified 140,000 acres with a high potential for oil and gas, but officials said the final plan, which will be released in the spring, might not allow drilling in all of the areas with energy potential.

There are currently 22 oil and gas leases across 15,000 acres in the Los Padres. Some of the leases are more than 100 years old. Those wells produce 500,000 barrels of oil a year, officials said. The Forest Service estimates that the area has an oil reserve of 90 million barrels.

The Forest Service has a federal mandate to prepare energy extraction plans. But even if the agency allowed drilling, there has been little indication from the energy industry that it would seek leases.

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“I’m not aware of tremendous interest in the forest from oil and gas companies,” said Cathy Good, spokeswoman for Los Padres. “But the fact is that national forests are managed for multiple uses. Mining and oil and gas production have been a part of this forest history. We will continue to provide those resources for the public if we can do it in an environmentally acceptable manner. It is a major challenge.”

Opposition to new leasing is growing. Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett called the potential for recoverable oil and gas minuscule and said that rather than new drilling, he would prefer to see an emphasis on energy conservation.

The Central Coast has a long association with both the oil and gas industries and opposition to its industrialization of the region’s offshore areas.

The Union Oil Co. began in nearby Santa Paula and offshore drilling platforms are still producing oil in the Santa Barbara Channel.

The activism against drilling in the Los Padres echoes protests of decades ago.

On Wednesday, Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum recalled the massive oil spill from an offshore rig 35 years ago that despoiled the city’s broad beaches and killed thousands of sea birds.

“We can’t let that happen again,” she said.

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