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April 3, 2012
ForestWatch Protects Cuyama Valley
From LARGE-SCALE OIL EXPLORATION
Project Would
Have Used Dynamite, Helicopters & ATVs to Explore For Oil
Deposits Across 23 Square Miles Between
the Los Padres National Forest & Carrizo Plain
Cuyama Valley, Calif.
– Today, an oil company
announced that it was withdrawing plans to use dynamite,
helicopters, and all-terrain vehicles to search for underground
oil deposits across 23 square miles of the
ecologically-sensitive Cuyama Valley in Santa Barbara County.
The decision came after ForestWatch and other groups filed
appeals, challenging the approval of the plans.
The County of Santa Barbara
initially approved the mega-exploration plan in March 2012,
claiming that the project was exempt from public notice and
environmental review because it constituted "basic data
collection." Working with local Cuyama Valley residents, Los
Padres ForestWatch and the Santa Barbara-based Environmental
Defense Center both filed separate appeals, formally requesting
that the County Planning Commission overturn the decision.
In response to the appeals, E&B
Natural Resources
– the Bakersfield-based
corporation proposing to conduct the exploration
– announced today that the
company "is withdrawing its application for the Cuyama 3D
Geophysical Data Acquisition Project."
If approved, the exploration
activities would have occurred over more than 23 square miles of
remote land in the Cuyama Valley, a remote portion of Santa
Barbara County nestled between the Los Padres National Forest
and the Carrizo Plain National Monument. The area is home to at
least 16 special-status plant species and 14 special-status
wildlife species, including several species of plants and
animals protected under the state and federal Endangered Species
Act such as San Joaquin kit foxes, blunt-nosed leopard lizards,
and Kern primrose sphinx moths.
The oil company was proposing
to bury and detonate a combined 37,873 pounds of dynamite at
more than 3,000 locations across the Cuyama Valley. The
explosives would have been placed throughout the valley using
helicopters, motorized buggies, drill-mounted vehicles, and
all-terrain vehicles. The underground explosions would have been
used to identify the location and extent of underground oil
deposits in the area
– the first step towards
expanding oil development in this remote region.
The Cuyama Valley currently
contains two small oil fields
– the South Cuyama Oil
Field, and the Russell Ranch Oil Field. The exploration plan
targeted undeveloped lands between these two oil fields, and if
significant oil deposits were discovered
– could have resulted in
the significant industrialization of this remote area.
The area targeted for
exploration included land directly adjacent to the Carrizo Plain
National Monument, and access routes that serve as gateways to
the Los Padres National Forest.
The Cuyama Valley has faced
increased oil drilling pressures in recent years. In 2005, the
U.S. Forest
Service announced that it would allow oil drilling to expand
in the area. Also in 2005, an oil tycoon announced plans to
drill an
exploratory well in Wells Canyon, inside the Carrizo Plain
National Monument. And in 2006, the U.S.
Bureau
of Land Management tried to auction several thousand acres
of federal and private land for oil drilling. ForestWatch and
other conservation groups have successfully stopped all three of
these proposals for the time being.
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