La Goleta Gas Field

SoCalGas installed four new production wells in 2014-2015 after filing an Environmental Impact Report and obtaining a Land Use Permit from Santa Barbara County.

The westernmost part of the field is within the property of the University of California, Santa Barbara; a cluster of gas wells operates just north of the east entrance roundabout.

The main gas processing facility for the field, and all recent development, are on this blufftop, on a single 147.4-acre parcel owned by SoCalGas, hidden from view by the elevated terrain and a dense grove of trees on the north.

In addition, the Goleta Slough and Atascadero Creek include protected wetlands, and important wildlife habitats occur throughout the area occupied by the gas field.

The main productive zone, directly under the Rincon, is in the Vaqueros Formation, a sandstone unit found about 4,000 feet below ground surface, familiar from its outcrops on the lower slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains, right at the line where chaparral replaces grassland.

Below the Vaqueros is either the red sandstone and conglomerate Sespe Formation, which was found to contain pockets of gas, none of commercially producible quantity in the early history of the field,[11] or the "Eocene-age" unit, as it is known in the 2013 Environmental Impact Report.

[16][17] In the early 2000s, recognizing the need to expand the capacity of their system and better level the load between summer and winter gas usage, SoCalGas proposed a project to upgrade the field.

In June 2013, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted to allow the project to proceed, and drilling of the new wells, and construction of the upgraded facilities began in 2014.