Ventura Residents join a chorus in the state saying no to more oil drilling. State Dept of Conserv. holds hearing today in Santa maria.

VCInFocus will be at the DOGGR hearing today in Santa Maria. State regulators from the Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources will be hearing from the public on what their new regulations should include and cover. DOGGR is beginning the formal rule making process in order to comply with the Pavley Bill, SB4, passed in Fall of last year, that puts regulations on the books specifically covering well stimulation processes, including fracking and acidization. 

Hearing will take place, today, Jan. 13. from 3 to 7 p.m. Santa Barbara County Supervisors Hearing Room, 511 East Lakeside Parkway. In Santa Maria.  Comments regarding the proposed regulations can be submitted via email to DOGGRRegulations@conservation.ca.gov; via FAX to (916) 324-0948; or via regular mail to the Department of Conservation Office of Governmental and Environmental Relations, 801 K Street MS 24-02, 95814, Attention: Well Stimulation Regulations.


Last week residents of Ventura County protested in front of the State scoping hearings. THe common theme was NO MORE. Residents are concerned about potential impacts of increased drilling and well stimulation processes that will be used and how the environment will be affected. During the hearing residents spoke about water quality, water usage, air pollution, risk of spills, risk of inducing earthquakes in a fault heavy area, and climate change. The protest was the idea of James Hines, a resident of Ventura and spokesperson for the Los Padres Chapter of the Sierra Club. 

A handful of speakers spoke in support of the increased activity, all in favor had close connections with the oil industry, including James Hill from Camarillo who said that while the industry should be able to do what they are proposing they have done a poor job of informing the public and should go after a "social contract" in order to garner public support. Hill is President of CalTerra Energy LLC, an oil and gas exploration company based in Camarillo.  

In Los Angeles, residents spoke out regarding their concerns related to increased oil production in their neighborhoods and old conditional use permits. This continues to be an issue for residents of Ventura County as well. 

The LA residents are concerned over the use of acidization, a well stimulation process that uses acid to "melt" away the rock allowing the oil to flow. 

click below to read the full article: 

South LA residents worried about oil drilling in neighborhoodsStephanie O'Neill | January 11th, 2014, 3:43pm

"A standing-room-only crowd of more than 300 South Los Angeles residents and community leaders gathered Saturday morning at the Holman United Methodist Church to express concern about new oil wells proposed for a site in the Jefferson Park neighborhood that would use a potentially dangerous extraction technology.The Murphy Drill Site, operated by Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas, is located west of USC in a dense neighborhood where residents say it's unsafe to use a new technique of injecting chemicals — including  toxic hydrochloric acid and benzene — deep into the earth to dissolve rocks and shale in order to extract oil.

The modern-day technology, called “acidization,” is different from conventional oil extraction that relies upon vertical, relatively shallow wells. Acidization, by contrast, requires deep, horizontal drilling that spiderwebs beneath neighborhoods.

Ventura County residents protested in front of last weeks public scoping hearing held by the California Department of Conservation. REsidents from Simi Valley, Oxnard, Ojai, Ventura, Thousand Oaks, Carpinteria spoke out in favor of a ban and/or moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.