State parks, historic landmarks, and open spaces throughout San Luis Obispo County are currently under review as potential fracking and oil drilling sites by the Trump administration.
More than 123,000 acres of land in SLO County are subject to federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) control. As a result they have been included in a far-reaching BLM environmental study of property in Central California that can be leased for fracking or oil drilling.
The areas under review include Morro Rock, Montaña de Oro State Park, Irish Hills Natural Reserve, and several other high-profile locations. That’s according to environmental nonprofit Los Padres ForestWatch, which used GIS mapping to pinpoint what areas the BLM is reviewing.
“We’re talking about nature reserves, areas along the Carrizo Plain, Los Padres National Forest, across the street from schools. … These places are completely inappropriate for drilling,” ForestWatch Executive Director Jeff Kuyper said. “We should be starting from which areas, if any, is it safe to frack [or] drill for oil?”
Kuyper requested the raw mapping data from the BLM after the agency initially provided the public with a “low-resolution” map that obscured the specific lands under review. In 2016, ForestWatch was part of a group of environmental groups that successfully sued the BLM to require it to examine the environmental impacts of expanding fracking on California’s public lands.
“We requested the [data] to get a more full assessment of what parcels were going to be subject to drilling and fracking,” Kuyper said. “We were able to plug it into our program and really zoom in and take a look at what parcels were vulnerable.”
SLO County lands included in the BLM’s study, from highest acreage to lowest, are: Camp Roberts (43,000 acres); Lake Nacimiento and Santa Lucia Range (32,000 acres); land surrounding the Carrizo Plain National Monument (28,140 acres); La Panza Mountain Range (7,000 acres); Santa Margarita Lake, Park Hill, and Calf Canyon areas (5,000 acres); Huasna Valley (2,500 acres); Montaña de Oro (1,222 acres); Whale Rock Reservoir (980 acres); private land neighboring Machesna Mountain Wilderness (480 acres); Lopez Lake (324 acres); Reservoir Canyon Nature Reserve (200 acres) and Irish Hills (76 adjacent acres) near SLO; land directly across from Los Osos Middle School (5 acres); and Morro Rock (“atop and surrounding” the volcanic plug).
In addition, nearly 122,000 acres of Santa Barbara County and 28,000 acres of Ventura County are included in the study, according to ForestWatch. In total, about 1.6 million acres are under review across several counties.
Kuyper said the scope of the BLM’s review indicates that it’s making a “default assumption that any land or mineral rights they own should be open to drilling … until the public can prove otherwise.”
Gabe Garcia, BLM’s field manager in Bakersfield, told New Times that the lands have been open to oil and gas leases for decades as part of its resource management plan. But the BLM has not issued a new lease in California in at least five years.
“It’s nothing that’s new,” Garcia said. “Some lands may have higher potential than others. … Our focus is how does hydraulic fracturing impact those lands?”
Local residents can weigh in on the BLM’s environmental review until Sept. 7, when the public comment period closes.
“Now’s our opportunity early in the process to point these issues out,” Kuyper said.
The feds’ look at unleased lands for oil or gas extraction hits as SLO County residents prepare to vote in November on Measure G, which would place a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the county. If passed, Measure G would not apply to federally managed lands. Δ
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 9, 2018.
Absurd!!!!
The next time you are told or read that San Luis Obispo will never be fracked (a main message of the no on measure g propaganda machine) remember this. As far as Big Oil is concerned, nothing is off limits. Their owners, investors, and corporations are not local and only really care about making money.
NOW more than ever, VOTE YES ON MEASURE G
BIG OIL business publicists, lobbyists, consultants, and marketing spinners – want to make the issue more complicated than it needs to be.
THE QUESTION THAT MATTERS: Do you want BIG OIL to greatly expand in SLO County? Or, is SLO agriculture, tourism, and water-safety more important to you?
Fracking is Destroying America’s Water Supply.. read up..
https://thinkprogress.org/fracking-is-dest…
Visit YESonMeasureG.org and learn what YES on Measure G does to protect our water, our economy, and our future.
Protects our water by limiting the expansion of unwanted oil field waste injection into local aquifers. Water that we can use in our homes and for local agriculture is wasted and poisoned.
Bans a future of Hydraulic Fracking and Acidification well-stimulation that can cause earthquakes and endanger water sources.
No impact on local fuel prices – every drop of oil from SLO county goes to Bay Area refineries and sold on international markets. Our oil never gets to a local gas station.
No oil jobs taken, No impact on taxes or economy – oilfield jobs and taxes are not stopped and existing oil production may operate with the hundreds of active wells currently in production.
What the oil company and their paid publicists are not telling you… including:
Oil extraction in SLO county depletes 19 gallons of water for every 1 gallon of oil extracted. That water is dumped and injected with oil field residue back into water aquifers.
Proposed expansion in Arroyo Grande by another 481 active oil wells risks our precious water resources and impacts future water supply, tourism, agriculture, and residential home values.
Ban Fracking and Oil Expansion in the unincorporated lands in our county – vote YES on G – visit: YESonMeasureG.org – pledge your vote, endorse YES on G, order your lawn sign, check out Artists for YES on G, volunteer, donate, attend an event – help protect our county!
How does the public weigh in before Sept 7??? Its not stated in article!!
Maryann — we embedded a link to the BLM’s website (“… Local residents can weigh in on the BLM’s environmental review until Sept. 7 … “) and it explains how to submit a comment. Thanks.
Is there a link to which lands are federally managed? This is really crazy – I just read yesterday that in South Texas there is so much shale oil extracted from drilling there that they are burning the excess oil. They can do that or slow down the drilling . . . they choose to burn it.
The US clearly does not need to start that process here.
Thx so much Peter!!
Can you imagine sitting at our favorite outdoor DOCKSIDE Restaurant on the water and looking at the Morro Bay Rock and seeing and listening to multiple iron horse pumps shrieking at you while a once beautiful white seagull now covered in black tar oil cries out to you? Yes, this can happen here. VOTE YES on Measure G. Protect our GOD GIVEN ENVIRONMENT.
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Can you imagine sitting at our favorite outdoor DOCKSIDE Restaurant on the water and looking at the Morro Bay Rock and seeing and listening to multiple iron horse pumps shrieking at you while a once beautiful white seagull now covered in black tar oil cries out to you? Yes, this can happen here. VOTE YES on Measure G. Protect our GOD GIVEN ENVIRONMENT.
Los Padres ForestWatch has put together some resources to help people see where exactly these areas are and easily submit comments online.
For an interactive map, visit:
https://lpfw.org/fracking-map
To easily submit comments online before the September 7 deadline, visit:
https://lpfw.org/fracking
Forestwatch, thanks for the map! That is very useful and very interesting.
So, is there even oil there? Where is the nearest oil producing well to this location? Kind of makes fracking a mute point if there isn’t any oil there… If there isn’t oil, is this article putting the cart before the horse and causing panic and concern over something that doesn’t exist?
It’s on the BLM list. The administration is looking at it.
Yeah, I saw that on the map. I’m just confused because when I look at DOGGR’s website, I cant find a single oil producing well in Morro Bay. There is property that is not controlled by BLM all around the Morro Rock acreage in question, so I would assume that if there was oil there somebody would have drilled wells and been producing by now. Is it still an oil lease (as shown on the Forest Watch map) if there is no oil?
I guess I’m a little less concerned. I don’t see a company coming in and spending millions of dollars to go drill where there is no oil.
Not only devastating to the environment as a whole, but ruining beautiful land formations like Morro Rock. Don’t forget the loss of tourism and revenue brought into Morro Bay.
I suspect the reason they pretend to be considering drilling the Rock is because they want to shock people so they can squeeze through with a less extreme plan. Tricky is as tricky does. Don’t let them do it. Yes on G!