Hi everyone!
Next set of postcards for Michigan voters going in the mail today. If you’re not on our spreadsheet for doing them, email us at indivisibleventura@gmail.com and put “Send me postcards,” your mailing address and how many you’d like to do. They divide best in 20 card lots. This latest batch used every one of the 3500 we ordered. Next order going up to 4-5k.
Post link: tinyurl.com/Antiracist-events-Ventura
Today’s Local Actions – Mon 7/27 – “Dys-Trumpia” Edition
The COIN doctrine comes to Portland.By using lawless, anonymous paramilitary forces, Trump and his minions are deliberately creating chaotic photo-ops. Then, like other authoritarians around the world, he can then campaign on a LAW & ORDER platform to his hyper-polarized base, who were beginning to waver due to his inept and lazy handling of the pandemic.
- Be absolutely sure you are ready to vote.
- Be sure you are counted.
Monday -7/27 – SIMI VALLEY – City Hall B.Y.O. Chair gathering (5 pm)
Monday-Thurs -7/27-31 – Get ready for the July 30 Planning Commission meeting on oil permitting.
(Los Padres Forest Watch)On Thursday, July 30th, the Ventura County Planning Commission will consider updating oil permitting to better protect the health and safety of our communities, our climate, and our public lands. Help us make sure they make the right choice.
Under current rules, an oil company need only submit a short application along with a $330 permit fee to receive a “zoning clearance” to drill or frack a well in Ventura County. Ventura County Board of Supervisors directed County staff to update the County’s oil drilling ordinances so that any new wells under these antiquated permits will be subject to greater transparency and environmental review. The Planning Commission will consider this important issue at a video-conference hearing on Thursday, July 30.
Most antiquated permits:
- have no limit on the number of wells that can be drilled
- have no expiration date
- do not stipulate what drilling techniques can be used
- new wells are approved without public notice or hearing
- have never undergone environmental review
Speaking Sign-up Deadline Wed. 3:30pm:Consider speaking at the hearing using Zoom. Click hereto register no later than 3:30 p.m. on July 29th. You will receive an email with the Zoom meeting link and password by 5:00 a.m. on July 30th, the day of the planning commission hearing.
To watch the planning commission live stream, click here. The item is No. 7on the agenda.
More information:
Thousands of new oil wells in Ventura County were drilled and continue to operate under “antiquated” permits issued up to 75 years ago—before environmental and human health impacts were known, and long before bedrock environmental laws existed. Most antiquated permits have never undergone environmental review and do not restrict dangerous techniques like fracking. They have no expiration date or restriction on the number of wells drilled, and new wells are often approved behind closed doors without any public notice or hearing.
The Sespe Oil Field is one example.It’s nearby the boundary of the Los Padres National Forest using —one of the most environmentally sensitive areasin Ventura County, adjacent to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary and the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge and bisected by Sespe Creek, a federally-protected river that’s home to endangered steelhead.
Polluting industries tend to locate themselves near small and lower-income communities who have few resources to ward off this kind of development. This project is only several hundred feet from the City of Fillmore’s only supply of drinking and irrigation water.
However, in this case, all Californians are suffering in the thirst for fossil fuel our president is doing nothing to quench. Our state is rated as having the “highest ozone levels” and “worst smog levels” in the country, while Trump just signed an executive order to remove significant environmental review for these kinds of projects. In March, the EPA announced they were also relaxing rules on pollution monitoring during the pandemic.
Reading:
- Feb. 22/2018: Ventura County put water supply at risk of Oilfield contamination. (Los Padres Forest Watch)
- June 23, 2016: Ventura oil spill misses the ocean, but damage on land is unclear (LATimes) Lawsuit just settled for $1.6 millionon July 21, 2020.
- Jan 2015: Californians at Risk: An Analysis of Health Threats from Oil and Gas Pollution in Two Communities (Case studies in Lost Hills and Upper Ojai) (cleanwaterfund.org)
- Draft Report Reveals Significant Environmental Impacts of Frackin in Ventura County’s Sespe Oil Field. (Los Padres Forest Watch)
Post link: tinyurl.com/Antiracist-events-Ventura
Adriene
Co-Director
Indivisible Ventura
indivisibleventura@gmail.com
