They cheered "Drill, baby, drill!" at the Republican National Convention. It's a parody of "Burn, baby, burn," the infamous cry during the 1965 Watts rebellion in Los Angeles. Ironically, it was former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, one of the GOP's very few prominent black politicians, cheerleading for the riot of the privileged:
Baldwin Hills, View Park, Windsor Hills, and Ladera Heights in Los Angeles, are some of the most prominent middle-class African-American neighborhoods in the United States. Thus, it is doubly ironic that, of all places, the old Baldwin Hills Oilfield is a major environmental battleground.
The Fight Over the Baldwin Hills Oil Field
Visit Web Site at: www.baldwinhillsoil.org
Watch Video at: http://www.youtube.com/...
The two-square-mile Baldwin Hills Oil Field is the last large-scale undeveloped open space in South and West Los Angeles. The Oil Field has operated since 1924. Over time, it naturally becomes harder to extract oil for old wells until at some point they become unprofitable. In recent years the field had almost played out. As the oil companies have left, a large area has been designated the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. For years, the old field and the surrounding nice residential neighborhoods coexisted. But this is the era when everything you ever thought you could rely on from American business - job security, health care, pensions, or even honest accounting - is old fashioned.
Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP) based in (where else?) Houston, Texas, wants to drill up to 1,000 new wells over the next 20 years. Next week there will be what is expected to be a contentious public hearing
Los Angeles County Planning Commission
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Hall of Administration,
Room 381B
500 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
The Baldwin Hills area has included oil and gas production since the 1920s, when the area was largely underdeveloped. Today, the oil field operates in the middle of a densely-populated urban area. The Oil Field has operated since 1924 without community oversight or an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to assess its impact on community health and safety.
Environmental Impact Report
In 2006, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors placed a temporary restriction on drilling new oil wells or deepening existing wells. That restriction expired on June 28, 2008 just as a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was released by the County. The oil field operator, Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP), proposes to expand the drilling. The 60-day public comment period for the Draft EIR was set to expire on August 19. Representatives from community groups such as the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance (GBHA), Mujeres de la Tierra, Culver Crest Neighborhood Association, and others have all petitioned for additional time to review the 800-plus pages of the Draft EIR.
Community Standards District
A Community Standards District (CSD) is a site specific zoning ordinance setting standards and regulations on oil drilling and production. It sets forth the conditions under which drilling can occur, while providing a mechanism to increase public oversight, monitoring, enforcement and accountability.
The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance recommendations include:
- Eliminate potential health risks and environmental impacts associated with the oil field operation through consolidation
- Provide enforceable environmental and health protections including monitoring sanctions and penalties
- Provide for the clean up and eventual transition of the land to parkland consistent with the Baldwin Hills Park Master Plan
- Support residential living, open space, recreation, schools, critical habitats and improve the current aesthetics of the oil field
- Establish oversight from a multi-sector advisory committee including residents.
Environmental Hazards
There is a delicate balance between the interests of the oil company to harvest local oil wells and maintaining the environment for people living in surrounding communities.
The by-products of oil production include: Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylene, collectively know as BTEX. Getting the crude oil from the ground in old wells requires water into the ground to force the crude oil to the surface. This creates an empty space or movement of a fault line. Also, extracting oil causes gases to rise to the surface through fault lines.
"Backyard bonanza or environmental time bomb?"
by Gregg Reese, Our Weekly, July 3 - July 6, 2008
Mark Salkin became involved in this issue as the president of the Culver City Crest Home Owners Association two and a half years ago, when the Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP), which currently owns the Baldwin Hills extraction field, struck a methane deposit in the process of drilling for oil. The subsequent link made several residents sick (with out any fatalities), and the county became involved with allegations that PXP was not observing environmental safety guidelines.
Salkin told Our Weekly that he was given a personal tour of the oil facility by PXP Vice President Steve Rusch a few years ago, and observed numerous sites in production or in an exploratory mode. . .
derricks in the area are out in the open for all to see, with little or no cosmetic enhancement. All this is in sharp contrast to pumps located in Beverly Hills (where image is paramount), say critics. One notable well sits right next to Beverly Hills High encased in a ten story structure that has been artfully decorated as well as sound proofed to mask the gyrations of the contraption inside. Derricks in other parts of the southland from Long Beach to West L.A. have been tastefully obscured via shrubbery or other methods of camouflage. . .
From "Burn, Baby, Burn" in 2001 to "Drill, Baby, Drill" in 2008.
In 2001, California was plunged into an unprecedented energy crisis: rolling blackouts, soaring power bills, a panicked state government. Turned out the Golden State was being systematically ripped-off. Documents and audiotapes proved Houston-based Enron Corporation asked power companies to take plants offline - in order to make more money. In one taped phone call, an Enron employee celebrated the fact that a massive forest fire had shut down a transmission line:
ENRON EMPLOYEE 1: Yeah.
ENRON EMPLOYEE 2: Now, the magical word of the day is "Burn, baby, burn."
ENRON EMPLOYEE 1: What's happening?
ENRON EMPLOYEE 2: There's a fire under the core line. This will delay us from 45 to 2,100.
ENRON EMPLOYEE 1: Really. Burn, baby, burn!
When Michael Steele cried "Drill, Baby, Drill!" to the rioting GOP, maybe he wasn't thinking about Watts in 1965. Maybe he was thinking about Enron's battle cry in 2001.
Less than a decade later, thanks to the terrifying spike in oil prices, the energy greedheads and carbon pushers are trying to stampede Californians into accepting offshore oil drilling and new drilling in old wells even though all the experts agree this will have no impact on the global marketplace for oil. As I write this, the "Drill, Baby, Drill" crowd is pushing hard for offshore drilling in Santa Barbara, Long Beach, Monterey Bay, and even off Point Reyes. (See www.environmentcalifornia.org)
And always, always, they try to divide us and rule us by playing off class, religious, and "racial" differences.
Will we let them get away with it?