Old wells, new rules for Baldwin Hills

Urban Oil: Old wells, new rules for Baldwin Hills

“Oil, The Industry of Progress.” Crude production idealized in a Marathon Oil ad.

As crude becomes pricier, L.A.’s 84-year-old Baldwin Hills oil field has become the focus of an intense new drilling campaign — 1,000 new wells planned by oilfield operator PXP — alarming neighbors and the County of Los Angeles which is updating regulations generally acknowledged to be decades behind the times. Our four-part investigative series for KNX 1070 Newsradio streams below.

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Then: Baldwin Hills Crews began sniffing for oil around Baldwin Hills in 1911, years into the Great SoCal Oil Boom ignited by Ned Doheny in 1892. Doheny sharpened a eucalyptus pole, punched into a pocket of crude near today’s Dodger Stadium, and ignited a firestorm of speculation, exploration and production.

A forest of wooden derricks quickly blossomed across the basin, tapping into oil oozing up along earthquake faults into subterranean chambers hundreds of feet below the surface.

There’s a current or former well for every red dot on this map — and more. Record-keeping from wildcat days is sketchy. Scams were frequent, so were blowouts and fierce fires that blackened skies.

But despite the mishaps, the Los Angeles basin has produced some nine billion barrels of oil for an energy-hungry world over the past century from some 30,000 wells — many now capped. Back in the day, L.A. produced a quarter of the world’s crude and experts agree there is more to be had.

Standard Oil struck crude on the Inglewood Fault under Baldwin Hills in 1924 and quickly planted a cash crop of derricks, pumping 90,000 barrels a day in 1925 though “easy oil” played out quickly.

In 2006, only highly-diluted petroleum was being drawn from 435 active wells — twelve barrels of oily water for every barrel of crude, netting some 25,000 barrels per day along with 5,700 cubic feet of natural gas, compressed on the spot and sold to Southern California Gas.

Now, Houston-based leaseholder PXP wants to drill a thousand new wells over the next 20 years to tap still-hidden reserves lying as deep as 10,000 feet below the Hills’ scrub brush and canyons. Some of its new wells will inject steam into underground reservoirs to loosen stubborn crude. PXP, with 1.6 billion in revenues in 2007, declines comment on its Baldwin Hills oil ops.

Unlike 1924 when Baldwin Hills towered 500 feet over bean fields, 300,000 people now live within three miles of the oil field including scores driven from Culver Crest in the early morning hours of January 2006 when a cloud of gas drifted onto their homes from a hilltop well. Sixty calls lit up 911 hotlines. Many feared suffocation and fled to hotels.

Homes above La Brea on the Hills’ east side rumble and vibrate from low-frequency vibrations when excess natural gas is flared off, a practice prohibited in Long Beach since 2005. Residents worry about cracking walls and foundations they believe are caused by flaring.

The Los Angleles County Health district surrounding Baldwin Hills includes the highest rate of emphysema in the County, four types of cancer and the sickest general population. No definitive health study probing possible links to the Inglewood field has yet been conducted but community healthworkers believe there’s more in play than coincidence. The Inglewood Oil Field currently exceeds emission thresholds for an assortment of hydrocarbons known to endanger health and contribute to climate change.

County regulations haven’t kept pace with technology, advanced drilling techniques, or the sudden economic urge to reinvigorate aging urban oil fields — but that’s changing fast. While PXP voluntarily extends a moratorium on new drilling, Los Angeles County, Culver City and Inglewood, along with homeowner and public health interest groups are creating a new Community Standards District to envelop Baldwin Hills and surrounding neighborhoods. [See: The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance]

A draft environmental impact report released June 18 is serving as a guide as new standards for safety, dust, air pollution, noise and traffic are developed. Four community meetings will allow residents to voice their concerns during the 60-day public comment period.

Informational Workshops
Thursday, July 17, 7-9pm
Veterans Hall, 4117 Overland Ave.
Tuesday, July 22, 7-9pm
Knox Church, 5840 La Tijera Blvd.

Regional Planning Commission Public Hearlings
Saturday, August 2, 12 noon
West L.A. College, 9000 Overland Ave.
Thursday, August 14, 6pm
Consolidated Board of Realists, 3725 Don Felipe Dr.
Wednesday, August 27, 9am
Hall of Administration, Room 150, 320 West Temple St.
Wednesday, September 10, 9am
County Planning Room, 320 W. Temple St.

Aesthetics are at issue, too. Expanded exploration is delaying the conversion of Baldwin Hills into a park, the end-game strategy of L.A. County and the State’s Baldwin Hills Conservancy once the oil’s tapped out. And many living near the industrialized hilltop want to know why their 2-square mile neighborhood oil field looks like Kern County when quiet, camouflaged rigs drill on the down-low in Beverly Hills and Century City.

There have been no calls to shut down the Inglewood Oil Field. Stakeholders insist they’re all about high-science risk management: the art of safely nestling an active oil field among encroaching residential neighborhoods. After all, million-dollar homes cozy up against wells in Signal Hill, one of 55 fields in a basin that’s among the world’s richest oil deposits.