The Environmental Defense Center recently discovered that Venoco, an oil company in Carpinteria, has been extracting oil from its offshore wells by acidizing. This discovery is very disconcerting because of the harmful consequences of acidizing. Similar to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, acidizing involves injecting dangerous chemicals into the ground.
Although Venoco claimed in January that they stopped fracking, the report by the Environmental Defense Center shows that this is not true. Acidizing is merely another form of fracking. This is a concern for Santa Barbara residents because it creates health risks and damages the environment. All forms of fracking need to be banned throughout California to prevent another disaster like the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara.