"We Don't Drill For Oil, We Drill For Money"
Your Humble Scribe spent the entire day yesterday at a hearing of the Ventura Planning Commission - and a depressing experience it was, too. (This is not a news report, just personal impressions.)
The good news is that the Press were there - the
Ojai Valley News and a rising journalistic star, Kimberly Rivers, who has the
cover article in the new issue of the Ventura Reporter. Kimberly's own Blog is
here; she has a cool item about a County in New Mexico which is the first in the nation to ban fracking.
Did you know that if a concerned citizen wants to appeal a decision by our Planning Commission they have to pay a fee of $2,000? An Upper Ojai Valley couple did that, and at the end of a gruelling day of talk, the Planning Director apologised to them for not having made the position clear. A simple meeting could have cleared the issue up, but no - two grand, please!
It was a display of human nature at its worst, and not all on one side.
One Commissioner appeared to nod off several times during the hearing; he was the one who said the Commissioners could solve all their procedural questions with an immediate up-or-down vote - you could almost hear the unspoken, "so I can get home and forget this BS".
Speaking as a layman, it appeared to me that these elected officials didn't even have to say which way they voted - though an educated guess wasn't difficult to make.
The Oil Company, Mirada, whose Permit was being revisited didn't bother to show up - until about 7 hours into the proceedings, when their attorney did a ruthless, dishonest,
ad hominem hatchet job on the poor people who were trying to protect themselves from being held responsible for the crimes of an Oil Company which drives its trucks through their land every day. You could hear the jaws dropping!
The Planning official in charge of this Permit process - take a bow, Mr. Baca - has been about 20 years in the Oil Industry. You would be hearing the cries of "Conflict of Interest" all across the County - if it weren't that this kind of thing is considered normal in these departments....
The Oil Company has been breaching the terms of its Permit - driving its giant trucks up and down a narrow residential road - for 17 years. Have they been punished? Have they been fined? Have they had their permit revoked? Take a guess.
Their original Permit was granted in 1972, for a single well to be drilled. So when they come back in this brave new century, wanting to have 9 wells in operation, all they need do is ask for an extension. The knowledgeable Mr Baca explained that the 9 wells would be based on one platform, but would control a "spider's web" of lateral drilling under our beloved Upper Ojai Valley.
The oil company attorney promised there will be no fracking at the site. So that's all right then. No doubt the County's one inspector will be checking regularly.
Oh, did I mention that several of the approximately 70 concerned citizens who attended, stood up and pointed out serious inconsistencies in the staff's presentation? Was anything done about it? Take another guess.
In the end, it seemed the only way this oil development might be subjected to any real scrutiny would be if the California Condors, a federally endangered species, triggered an Environmental Impact Report. Not at this Commission, they won't.
A California Condor ponders his future
The Commission Chairman at the end of the exhausting proceedings, thanked everyone graciously for showing up, and for watching "Democracy in action". Oh, how true....
