… then this message is for you.

August 2 is D-day!

This is the day on which we decide to go to the beach, or show up at noon at West L.A. College’s Theatre to speak to L.A. County Regional Planning Commissioners to let them know that we do not want PXP Oil Company to turn Culver City into a Cancer Zone.  We must show that we are a force to be heard and to not just let PXP bowl over the County with its proposed plan.

PXP, the oil company operating in the Baldwin Hills oil fields, is proposing to drill an additional 1000 wells and continue to operation the current 436, plus reactivate a good portion of the 600 dormant wells on their property.   Do you want 2,000 wells pumping 24/7 in our “backyards”?  

The Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and regulations PXP is proposing would make it legal to drill with 500 feet from your home, hospital, health or educational facility.   It contends that it is okay to drill within 50 feet of an active earthquake fault zone.  If there is an escape of toxic fumes (which has occurred in the past), it could encompass most if not all of Culver City.  PXP’s current operating standards are for the most part antiquated yet there has been little or no testing of many of their practices.  They are too numerous to list here but we are challenging them all.  Please visit our website at www.culvercrest.org for more information on this issue.

More startling, if this EIR is approved by the County, it sets PXP’s operating standards for the next 20 years.  We would be powerless to make any adjustments short of a disaster, at which time it would be too late. 

Is this what you want to expose yourself, your children and family to?  If not, it is urgent that all of us attend the noon on Saturday, August 2nd meeting at WLAC and bring all of your concerned neighbors!

We must speak up now!

There will be signs directing you to the auditorium once you’re on campus.

Thanking you in advance for your participation.

The Board of the Culver Crest Neighborhood Association.

Here is a Google Map of the area covered by the proposed CSD.

View Larger Map

Some things to note:

• Click on ‘View Larger Map’ or the link above the map to get a better picture of what’s going on
• Different colored outlines are:
  • Red outline (and red shaded area): proposed CSD
  • Blue outline: active field boundary, i.e. boundary that includes all current oil wells (outline might show up as magenta where it coincides with proposed CSD outline, and orange where it coincides with Culver City outline)
  • Green outline: the City of Culver City.
• Outline data derived from GIS (Geographical Information Systems) data provided by PXP, Los Angeles Department of Regional Planning and the City of Culver City.

Some more articles on PXP Oil, quoting members of the Culver Crest Neighborhood Association.

Toxin risk viewed as top concern over new oil wells

By ARIN MIKAILIAN, Staff Writer 24.JUL.08
At a meeting hosted by Los Angeles County officials this month, residents who live in areas surrounding the Baldwin Hills Oil Field said their personal health was the primary concern with respect to future drilling.

Read the rest of this article

Uncertainty as drilling moratorium expires

By ARIN MIKAILIAN, Staff Writer 10.JUL.08
A group of Culver Crest residents and some of their neighbors from abutting communities have drafted their own community standards district, in the hopes that it will supplant a similar document presented by an oil company seeking to increase its drilling in a nearby oil field.

Read the rest of this article

Plan to expand oil drilling by 1,000 wells draws health and environmental concerns

BY LEILONI DE GRUY, Staff Writer 26.JUN.08

Residents of several neighborhoods in and around South L.A. express doubt about proposal by firm that has been source of controversy.

Read the rest of this article

Thank you to all of you who filled the Vet’s Rotunda Room last night for the L.A. County Workshop. It was a typical example of the outstanding community involvement our residents engage in. We must continue to put pressure on the County to listen to reason about the approval of the EIR.

Here’s a follow up to the information mentioned last night about the appearance of Joy Horowitz discussing her book on the Beverly Hills oil issue.

AUTHOR TO SPEAK ON THE POISONING OF BEVERLY HILLS HIGH SCHOOL

Joy Horowitz , author of “Parts Per Million, the Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School,” will speak on Thursday, July 24 at 6:00 PM at the Culver City Library. Her book examines the disproportionately high rate of cancer suffered by the teachers and students of Beverly Hills High School which was blamed on the oil pumping operation adjacent to the school. The case was made famous when Erin Brockovich filed a lawsuit against the School District. The topic is especially relevant today in Culver City, in view of the recently released Environmental Impact Report of the Baldwin Hills oil field.

The event, sponsored by the Culver City Friends of the Library, is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.

The Culver City Julian Dixon Library is located at 4975 Overland Avenue, Culver City, CA 90230. Overflow parking is available next door to the North of the Library at 4909 Overland Avenue. For more information, go to our website, www.ccfol.org. For ADA accommodation, call (310) 830-0231 (voice) or (310) 830-4532 (TTY) Monday – Friday at least 6 days prior to event.

Backyard bonanza or environmental time bomb?

Oil companies are revisiting formerly abandoned drill sites forsaken years ago as being unprofitable. This is not surprising considering the recent skyrocketing gasoline prices and oil costs per barrel.

Read the rest of the Our Weekly article by Gregg Reese

Here is information from the County regarding how to submit comments about the Draft EIR and CSD:

The Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Community Standards District (CSD) are available for review and comment until August 19, 2008.  Please see the information below on how you can submit your comments.

Hardcopies of the Draft EIR are located at View Park Library, 3854 West 54th St. Los Angeles and Culver City Julian Dixon Library, 4975 Overland Ave, Culver City, as well as in PDF format online at the two links above.

Submit your written comments by August 19, 2008 to one of the addresses below.  You can email your comments to either of the individuals below or to commplan@planning.lacounty.gov and they will be promptly forwarded to the appropriate party. If you email in comments, we recommend sending a cc: via snail mail.

Comments on the Draft EIR should be directed to: 

Paul McCarthy
Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning
Impact Analysis, Hall of Records
320 W. Temple Street, Rm. 1348
Los Angeles, CA 90012
pmccarthy@planning.lacounty.gov
 
Comments on the applicant proposed Community Standards District should be directed to:

Russell J. Fricano
Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning
Community Studies I, Hall of Records
320 W. Temple Street, Rm. 1340
Los Angeles, CA 90012
rfricano@planning.lacounty.gov

To submit comments on both the Draft EIR and proposed CSD or to learn more about the project, please visit: http://planning.lacounty.gov/baldwinhillscsd

Note: the CSD in question is the one by PXP, not ours, i.e. they’re taking comments on the official one. The comments could of course be: “use ours!”

CCNA board advisor  John Kuechle and board member Suzanne De Benedittis were interviewed during the press conference by the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance on the release of their own Community Standards District document (that competes with the one submitted by PXP Oil).

(Note that there is a short advertisement at the head of the clip.)

Here is the press release that spurred on this coverage:

And here is a statement by State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas regarding this CSD: 

CSD stands for Community Standards District, and is a zoning overlay for a particular area or region that legislates what can or cannot be built or how how a business can or cannot be run in that given area.

In the context of the PXP Oil Environmental Impact Report, the CSD says how the oil company that leases the Baldwin Hills Oil Fields can and cannot extract oil from the ground, what they must do to be in compliance with laws, etc.

A way to think about the CSD vs. the EIR (Environmental Impact Report) is to use the analogy of building a large building, e.g. the Entrada office towers, Playa Vista, etc.: the applicant (the builder, or in our case PXP Oil), submits a project for consideration.  The project is the CSD: it says what they’re going to drill, where they’re going to build, etc.  Then comes the EIR, which looks at the CSD and figures out what kind of damage the project will create.  It then recommends mitigation measures that will defend against the potential environmental damage.  The planning commission then takes the data in the EIR and hopefully rewraps it into the CSD, upgrading the CSD so that the mitigation measures are built into the legislation.  Repeat once or twice, and ultimately it goes in front of the County Board of Supervisors, of whom there are five individuals each covering a portion of Los Angeles.  In our case, the Baldwin Hills Oil Fields fall under the territory of outgoing Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke (thus our interest in who is going to be her successor).

This is the Community Standards District (a zoning overlay) that we, the CCNA, think would be a significantly improved starting point than the CSD that was authored by PXP Oil. The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance is organized by the Community Health Councils, and while CSD is published by the GBHA, we think of it as “our own”, as it was created in huge part by your neighbors Ken Kutcher and John Kuechle.

An article in the Culver City edition of The Wave about PXP oil, the drilling moratorium, and the competing CSD authored by Ken Kutcher and John Kuechle.

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