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City Agency Shenanigans and Freeport-McMoRan Oil

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Category: Community News
Published on Friday, 11 April 2014 16:06
Written by Leslie Evans
Three oil company drill sites in the historic West Adams section of South Los Angeles, operating some 121 underground wells, have been the center of citizen protests, ramped up government inspections, a City Attorney lawsuit, and complaints that the city's Zoning Administration has violated state law and municipal code in fast-tracking oil company expansion plans. 

Freeport-McMoRan Oil and Gas Co. operates two drill sites in West Adams, at 1349-1375 Jefferson Blvd., and the Murphy Drill Site at 2126 W. Adams Blvd.

Last year, Freeport asked the City Planning Department to approve new drilling at both of its sites. The Jefferson site application went to Zoning Administrator Sue Chang, who called a Public Hearing on September 25. She discovered that the "mother case" numbers, which match specific wells with their permits and conditions of use, were totally confused in the application and Planning Department files. The application listed two wells to be redrilled in the wrong district and under the wrong mother case number, and a new well to be drilled under a case number that did not permit that type of well. She has now postponed the hearing twice, and we await a new hearing date.

Meanwhile, attention has shifted to Freeport's Murphy site. Its new wells were approved last May (it drilled them in December). Freeport later asked the Planning Department to approve an expansion of the active drill site into a sloping piece of parkland that had been reserved for landscaping since the site was first authorized back in 1961, a decision reaffirmed numerous times in the last 52 years.
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Freeport proposed adding a 26-foot-high enclosure, sixty feet long by 25-feet deep, to house a CEB800 gas burner to dispose of waste gas. The CEB800 is a very small device, 4'8" X 6'5." The site plan for the existing facility shows more than ample space where an object of this size could be located. Yet Zoning Administrator David Weintraub approved the enclosure in a December 26, 2013, letter, which he designated a "communication," a routine level that cannot be appealed. After protests, the City Attorney made Weintraub upgrade the decision to a "determination," which can be appealed.

At least two local residents filed appeals on the enclosure, also pointing out that the original authorizations for permits for the new wells were issued back in 2007, and Los Angeles Municipal Code specifies that construction under such permits must begin within 90 days or they expire and can't be renewed without a full review. Freeport drilled anyway, on the expired permits. Weintraub failed to carry out the required review. More serious, all expansions of oil operations under the state's California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) require a new Environmental Impact Report. This legal requirement has been ignored for years by Zoning Administrators issuing decisions on the Murphy location. Weintraub did not mention CEQA in his December 26 authorization.

One of the appeals charges that "The ZA and Planning Department repeatedly sidestepped State and City law, violated established procedure, ignored prior ZA determinations and conditions, failed to undertake proper public notifications, made decisions in secret without proper review or even the requirement of proper applications, and tried to forbid appeals of their own decisions."

The system has broken down. It needs to be fixed. The problems at Jefferson were caught by a sharp public servant, but Murphy has been a runaway train. And Allenco is one example of what a train wreck can be like. There are 5,000 active oil wells in the city and thousands more inactive but remaining a potential risk. This is an issue for the entire city.












































































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Established in August of 2008 by writer, artist Dianne V. Lawrence, The Neighborhood News covers the events, people, history, politics and historic architecture of communities throughout the Mid-City and West Adams area in Los Angeles Council District 10.

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