Submitting a Public Comment
***The FINAL environmental impact report (EIR) for ERG’s oil well proposal has been released! The County’s Energy Divison is currently accepting public comments on the draft EIR – submit yours today! ***
- Written Public Comment Open until Monday, March 11 2019 – email your comments to dvillalo@co.santa-barbara.
ca.us
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Not sure what a public comment is, or how to submit one? Here’s a crash course:
A county-level public comment is either and in-person, written letter, or online comment that anyone who resides in, or has a connection to, the county can deliver to have their voice directly head on county-level decisions. For new proposals for development – such as oil wells – the county goes through specific steps to review the proposal and determine whether to approve or deny it (find more about the process here). The public is allowed to comment on the draft EIR to give their input as to whether they belive it has left out any important considerations.
IMPORTANT: Do not submit public comments with ‘general opposition’, as those comments will be disregarded by the county. All comments should speak specifically to (a) the ‘environmental’ (and related) impacts of the project and (b) whether the draft EIR failed to incorporate those concerns. (If you want to submit a general opposition comment, write to your supervisor instead.)
Sound tough? That’s because it is – the EIR is a lengthy document and even for those of us with a lot of experience with EIRs, it takes significant time to comb through. That’s why we’ve pulled together a summary of the ERG EIR and our take on it. You are encouraged to look at the official EIR, but are also welcome to pull on our summary as well as our guide on writing letters of public comment as you draft yours:
Happy writing!