More Los Padres Oil Could Be Tapped

The Bush administration’s decision to weaken federal protection of roadless regions of national forests could throw open to development an unspoiled section of the Los Padres National Forest that contains untapped oil reserves.

The sprawling Los Padres, the only national forest in California with appreciable oil and gas reserves, already produces 700,000 barrels of oil per year, primarily from a field near Fillmore. The patchwork of forest land parallels the central coast from Ventura County to Big Sur.

The richest cache of oil--totaling an estimated 21 million barrels--sits beneath five roadless areas within the forest that are now considered off-limits to traditional oil drilling, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes said Friday.

The dry, hilly grasslands and chaparral are not as majestic as some other national forests in the state. But the roadless areas are home to three officially endangered species--the California condor, the San Joaquin kit fox and the California jewelflower--and contain potential habitat for other rare species, Mathes said.

Under previous policy, according to Mathes, the only way the oil could be removed would be by costly slant drilling from outside the roadless area.

Environmentalists fear that the roadless areas, as well as several others in Northern California, could be opened to commercial activity as a result of Bush’s decision to let local interests decide the fate of those areas. The decision affects about 60 million acres of forest nationwide that the Clinton administration had put off limits to road construction and commercial exploitation.

“One of the areas I’m most concerned about is in the Los Padres National Forest,” said Ryan Henson of the California Wilderness Coalition, which sharply criticized the Bush administration for what it called a severe weakening of the rule. Environmentalists also expressed concerns about possible timber cutting in the Six Rivers, Trinity and Shasta forests of Northern California if the rule is rolled back.

In all, the impact of the Bush administration’s decision is not considered significant in California, where pressure for new roads has not been great recently. Only 10.75 miles of new timber-related roads are planned for construction by 2004, with another 57 miles of new road slated for other purposes. That compares to 44,600 miles of roads now existing within the state’s national forests.

“Generally, our view is that the roadless policy will have minimal impact in California,” said Louis Blumberg, deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The full protections given 11 of California’s 18 national forests, those in the Sierra Nevada, will not be completely determined until the Bush administration reviews the Sierra-Nevada Conservation Framework. The Clinton-era framework is supposed to protect old-growth forests and reduce fire risks in California’s best-known mountains, said Jay Watson, California director for the Wilderness Society.

The Forest Service is completing a long-awaited environmental review of the effects of expanding oil production in the Los Padres forest. That review began in the early 1990s, long before the roadless rule was adopted by former President Bill Clinton. A draft version of the plan is due to be released for public scrutiny in July.

But in a state racked by energy problems, environmentalists fear that pressures will mount locally to open up the Los Padres roadless areas for oil drilling, which would mean building roads.

While some oil is produced in the forest, industry spokesman Frank Holmes said Friday he does not know of any firms keenly interested in doing more work there. Oil producers are far more interested in offshore sites, he said, adding that the Los Padres contains “very rough terrain, and the regulatory environment is very burdensome.”

Holmes is coastal coordinator for the Western States Petroleum Assn., which represents the West Coast petroleum industry.

He added that “as far as the roadless rule that Clinton put in place, that was clearly a major hurdle for production activities where there currently aren’t existing roads.”

As for the Los Padres forest, Holmes said, “there’s clearly potential for oil and gas resources. There’s not a lot of current production.”

The five roadless areas in question lie mostly in northern Santa Barbara County and in a small portion of northwest Ventura County.

Though the Clinton administration has been criticized for approving the roadless rule without adequate public comment, Mathes said the Forest Service held at least 63 public meetings on the rule in California.

Some critics of the rule cited potential curbs on oil, gas and other mineral exploration, he said. Environmentalists, meanwhile, promoted it as a way to protect near-pristine forests and other wild areas.