In Santa Barbara County, oil firms and environmentalists square off
The Los Angeles Times
In Santa Barbara County, oil firms and environmentalists square off
August 18, 2014
Seen from U.S. 101, northern Santa Barbara County looks to be mostly vineyards and cattle ranches, with majestic oak trees scattered across the dry rolling hills..
But up a narrow road, spread across the chaparral between Orcutt and Los Alamos, wells drilled deep into the shale have yielded more than 180 million barrels of oil in the 113 years since Union Oil Co. geologist William Orcutt first surveyed the area that would soon bear his name.
The bobbing pump jacks, pipelines and tanks on Orcutt Hill, not visible from the highway, now produce 3,500 barrels of oil a day for Pacific Coast Energy Co. But company managers say the 6,000-acre operation, like similar ones nearby, is threatened by a November ballot measure that would ban "high-intensity petroleum operations" in the county.
"It will, in fact, shut down onshore oil production in Santa Barbara County," said Dick Hart, who oversees Orcutt Hill for Pacific Coast Energy. "Thousands of people are going to lose their jobs."....
MORE at
http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-santa-barbara-fracking-20140818-story.html#page=1