WASHINGTON — A subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum has notified the Bureau of Land Management that it would like to explore for oil in a central California national monument.John Dearing, a BLM spokesman, said the agency can do nothing to stop Vintage Production from testing for oil under the Carrizo Plain National Monument in eastern San Luis Obispo County because the company has owned the mineral rights there since before President Bill Clinton created the monument in 2001. “Because this is a national monument, there will be environmental concerns that will have to be strongly looked at,” Dearing said. “But they have a right to access.”
The monument's 250,000 acres are not virgin territory for drilling rigs. The monument is just over a hill from the oil fields of Kern County. There is a small amount of production already occurring in remote canyons of the monument.
But VintageÂ’s holdings are under the heart of the monument grounds, and whatever it does canÂ’t help but affect the natural grasslands and wildlife diversity of the area. The monument contains the last remaining vestiges of San Joaquin Valley grasslands and is home to the greatest concentration of endangered species in the country. Among those endangered animals is the kangaroo rat, which lives in the ground where Vintage Production wants to explore.
The exploration proposal, which Dearing said has yet to be submitted to the BLM, is dividing environmentalists. “Oil drilling is not going to occur on the Carrizo Plain National Monument without a huge battle,” said Pat Veesart, a former member of the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission and a board member of Los Padres Forest Watch. “If anyone wants to drill for oil there, they had better be prepared to go to war over it,” Veesart said.
But others see an opportunity, noting that at least initially there will be no holes bored into the ground.
Seismic testing will determine whether there is oil and gas in VintageÂ’s holdings, which lie beneath 30,000 acres of the monument. That in turn could set a value for the mineral estate. With such a value established, the BLM could begin negotiations to trade other oil rights for the monument property or open talks with the BLMÂ’s monument partners, the state Department of Fish and Game and The Nature Conservancy, for an outright purchase.
“If they had a show, it might let us get our heads together for a trade out,” said Tom Maloney, the Conservancy’s San Luis Obispo County project manager. “It’s just exploration now, and not development.”