Dear Mr. Schwartz:

I am a resident of Ventura CA. I backpack using the Doughflat, Alder Creek, Sespe, Gene Marshall, and other trails in the Los Padre and Sespe. It is an extrodinarily beautiful wilderness area. I am certain that if you have explored it or camped out, you will agree. Sespe sandstone, colorful granite, hotsprings, conifer forest, monolithic geological structures! The origins of several watersheds like the Piedra Blancas, Alder Creek, Poplar Creek, Piru, and many more water producing systems all filling our water aquifers. High in the these watersheds you can drink the water directly out of a stream or spring. High in these water sheds trout live indigenous to California. It is truely magnificant! It is right here in our backyard! 
Humans long for these types of places to get away and ponder, to bond with nature, to learn something about ourselves. We bring our children to places like this for a first experience in nature. We meet God. We rejuvinate. We rejoyce! 
Fracking high in this watershed is nothing short of irresponsible. You and other like you will be demonstrating total disregard and contradiction of the mission statement of the USFS to allow one more oil/gas well to be drilled and fracked on any public land! It is a crime against nature and a nature loving American people! I want to call the police and report a crime!
When I was a younger man I fracked in PA. OK.and TX. From firsthand experince I can tell you that pollution will and does occur on every well site. Pollution from machines and trucks and fracking chemicals, garbage left by roughnecks, cigarette butts and tobacco. And this pollution is just on the surface to soak into the ground.  Pits dug to hold fracking fluids and brine regurgitated when the pressure is let off. Pits all lined with a thin rubber or plastic membrane. I cant tell you how many times I have seen leaks and cuts and tears in these liners that allow fluids to leak and permeate into the earth. Undesirable garbage hydrocarbons not fully burnt off at low combustion temperatures, too costly to refine and so it is just released into the atmosphere. I have seen drilling fluids, cementing fluids, fracking fluids, and oils running down hillsides into pristine streams. 
You don't here about this though because the people on those wellsites desparately need jobs and make damn good money or are scared to lose a job for being a whistleblower. No one needs to tell them to keep quiet. What happens on a well site stays on a well site. Hell of a problem that you don't know about. But thats just the surface pollution.

How do you know if a frack job does or does not spread into an adjacent water aquifer? Do you trust the oil company to execute the job in such a way that no cross contamination occurs? Do you trust the oil comapnies science? Do you do your own science to determine if such a thing can happen?
What is happening to all the millions and millions of gallons of watse fluids and byproduct produced? Is it pumped back into the earth? Is it dumped in the ocean? Is it (at great expense to an oil company) effectively cleaned up at waste treatment plants? History shows us that resource extraction always leaves messes. Can we just ignore the petroleum industries messes because they are producing jobs and paying your agency money.
What about the extraction of hydrocarbon product in proximity to geological tectonic faults. Are we releasing the pressure so the big one doesn't happen or are we speeding forward? Have you heard about the increased frequency and intensity of earthquakes in OK in the last twenty or so years?  Oklahoma! Well...what is going on there to cause that?

Please do the right thing here in our backyard, In the Los Padres and Sespe. Or must we protect the watershed from the USFS?
The Forest Service mission is captured by the phrase "Caring for the Land and Serving People." Our mission, as set forth by law, is to achieve quality land management under the sustainable multiple-use management concept to meet the diverse needs of people. For Forest Service employees this means participating in the following activities:
Advocating a conservation ethic in promoting the health, productivity, diversity, and beauty of forests and associated lands.
Listening to people and responding to their diverse needs in making decisions.
Protecting and managing the national forests and grasslands so that they best demonstrate the sustainable multiple-use management concept.
Providing technical and financial assistance to State and private forest landowners, encouraging them to practice good stewardship and quality land management in meeting their specific objectives.
Providing international technical assistance to cities and urban communities to improve their natural environment by planting trees and caring for their forests.
Helping States and communities to use the forests wisely in order to promote rural economic development and a quality rural environment.
Developing and providing scientific and technical knowledge aimed at improving our capability to protect, manage, and use forests and rangelands.
Providing work, training, and education to the unemployed, underemployed, elderly, youth, and disadvantaged in pursuit of our mission.


Concerned Citizen

Ventura, CA 03001