UCSB to Explore Effects of Oil Industry
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have received a federal grant to study the economic and social effects of the oil industry in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, officials announced Friday.
The university received a $415,210 contract to conduct a three-year study of the three counties, where the oil industry has been prominent since the turn of the century, said officials with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service.
The study is aimed at helping officials understand how the oil industry shaped the region and how community reaction to oil drilling and pumping has affected the industry, officials said.
Separate reports on the industry’s impact on each county are scheduled to be published in 1996, said J. Lisle Reed, director of the Mineral’s Management Service’s regional office in Camarillo.
“We need to understand the history in order to know what should be done in the future to teach people to react to facts instead of emotion,” Reed said.
The Minerals Management Service regulates offshore oil drilling and pumping in federal waters that begin three miles from the coastline.
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