Dear Mr. Schwartz:

As a Santa Barbara County resident and an avid hiker and camper the Ojai and entire SO cal area I implore you to protect the Los Padres National Forest from the impacts of fracking and other "enhanced" oil drilling. The Forest Service should prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement, and no fracking should be approved without this at the very least!

Everyday more and more credible scientific evidence comes to light regarding the hazards fracking and it's ilk poses to the local ecosystem, and economy, as well as it's contributions to climate change.There are major downsides to any job gains, and the job gains estimates have recently been shown to be grossly exaggerated and in fact recoverable oil in Monterey shale, has been downplayed 96% from original estimates. Meanwhile all it takes is ONE spill or leak during the process, (which includes tranport of toxic frack chemicals) for devastating groundwater contamination, or surface water pollution to occur. Not to mention that fracking diverts a tremendous amount of much needed water-even recycled water is needed by farmers- and in places in the state with high oil extraction and fracking the air pollution and air pollution related illness is higher than elsewhere. There are MANY more externalities to this practice that outweigh any advantages. It is not acceptable to approve any more fracking in such an environmentally sensitive area until the potential impacts are FULLY known, and until measures are FIRMLY put into place to protect our forest and our water supplies from environmental harm. Frankly, we need a moratorium on this, and instead of ramping up on more oil development we should be subsidizing more solar and wind projects.

I also urge you to take all measures to protect endangered California condors and steelhead from the impacts of oil development. Please ensure that spills of oil and other hazardous chemicals do not enter Sespe Creek or its tributaries.

Again, I urge the Forest Service to prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement before approving any fracking, acidizing or cyclic steam operations in Los Padres National Forest. Thank you for your efforts to protect our forest and surrounding communities.


Grace Feldmann

Santa Barbara, CA, CA 93105