Good thing we have national monuments!
March 2nd, 2008
Good thing we have national monuments and national parks and wilderness areas! Why? Shoot, because without those protections there would be reckless exploitation of those lands… things like oil drilling and the like.
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.
And a sad note on this monument…
Since its creation, the monument has been a battleground over cattle grazing. The refuge’s former manager, Marlene Braun, committed suicide during the height of those tensions, believing she had been sidelined by her superiors seeking to protect grazing rights despite the area’s new mission of species protection.
What the oil companies want, the oil companies get. After all, this isn’t the first national lands wrecked by oil exploration:
Oil exploration is under way within Padre Island National Seashore, bringing heavy truck traffic that park advocates worry will disrupt visitors and threaten the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle.
The BNP Petroleum Corporation has already drilled a natural gas well within the park, bringing truck traffic along 15 miles of the Gulf beach. BNP intends to drill several more wells at the seashore.
Related posts: They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar, The end of ranching (and the need for land use safeguards), A devastating year (so far) for Oregon and the environment...
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