The tigerishly aroused citizen warriors who became expert on oil-drilling after joining the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance, have lived to fight expansion plans by the perceived giant, Plains, Exploration & Production Co., PXP, still another day — next Wednesday, to be exact.
There are two reasons for extending the gritty battle — partly circumstantial and partly because the activists’ laser-focus on their dense subject is making a deep indentation on the decision-makers, the County Regional Planning Commission.
Since the meeting was shortened because of a crowded agenda, Commission Chair Hal Helsley made sure that citizen statements truncated by the schedule would be heard. He directed speakers to relay their comments to staff members so they would be considered in the final accounting.
No precise scoring calculation is available. But late-blooming momentum seems to favor the Culver Crest area residents winning numerous safety provisions in the Inglewood oil field, binding rules they have been chasing for months.
The number of wells to be drilled annually was one of yesterday’s focal points. Although PXP originally sought approval for a maximum of 85 wells a year, over the next 20 years, with 40 or so being called a more realistic average, the company’s literature for consumers asserted, according to testimony, “no more than 15 or 20 a year.” The final number still is to be decided, but if it is close to the latter numbers, the result would possibly a reduction from the number drilled before PXP’s voluntary present two-year moratorium on drilling.
No Claims of Conquest
Since the drawn-out procedure still is short of a final score, Ken Kutcher and John Kuechle, co-leaders of the band of citizens, are not claiming victory. Similarly, PXP Vice President Steve Rusch is not acknowledging anything resembling a setback.
But there may be a widening gulf between the way the two sides are viewing the proceedings.
“We have made tyremendous headway with regard to what will be the likely contents of the Community Standards District,” Mr. Kutcher said. “My only concerned is the time crunch. Can we get it all accomplished in a way that everybody is comfortable with, given the time frame of the 21st of this month?”
Whether the oil drilling company underestimated the determination and the effectiveness of the Alliance will have to be determined at another time.
Hails Commissioners
“I was very encouraged by a number of things the commissioners said today,” said Mr. Kuechle. “Two or three of them made very useful comments about the directions they want the Community Standards District to head. They were exactly the right directions, as far as I am concerned.
“I am encouraged, and I hope (County) staff will take them up on their suggestions.”
Is Mr. Kuechle optimistic about the Alliance sufficiently getting its way on tougher regulations governing the drilling? “Always,” he said.
While just as upbeat as Mr. Kuechle, Mr. Kutcher regretted that “it’s too bad they are running out of time for these hearings. The Planning Commission really is engaged on this now.”
Additionally, outside of the multiple hearings, Alliance leaders have met with County staffers to convey their passionately held findings and concerns.
Setting Not Conducive to Goals
“It is very hard, in a hearing context, to have the kind of give-and-take we feel is necessary and that leads to an understanding. I am just trying to convey information and concepts. It’s up to the commissioners to make up their own minds. I just have wanted to have a productive dialogue, and I think they sense that, too.”
Regarding evaluation of progress and accomplishments, Mr. Rusch of PXP was more circumspect.
“I would not characterize it as saying ‘we have got largely what we wanted,’ or that any one particular group has. What you have now is an orderly CSD, although there are still some issues.”
Mr. Rusch made it clear PXP is ready to move on, eschewing further hearings. “It is time to kick it on to the Board of Supervisors. I think we found out there has been plenty of time, with all of the extensions, all of the meetings, that it’s ready to go?”
Another Wrinkle
Asked if he was satisfied with the contents of the Community Standards District, Mr. Rusch said:
“It is the most restrictive — it raises the standards, the highest of any onshore oil field in the United States.”
Turning his attention to the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance, Mr. Rusch said:
“I don’t have a problem with environmental and safety issues. I would say the question is, Does it represent a kind of professional moratorium because there is so much now to do, you won’t ever get through the Planning Dept.?
Going into the first of five public hearings hosted by the County Regional Planning Commission, PXP was the odds-on favorite.
Unimpeded Sailing Forecast
It did not figure to be slowed much as it negotiated with its so-called ally, County officials, through a bureaucratic County labyrinth to win long-presumed approval for expanded drilling against supposedly token resistance, protests from an unknown citizens group.
When the public process began last spring, the barely visible Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance struggled to gain traction and recognition. In the early going, they spoke of feeling nearly luckless.
However, with Mr. Kuechle and Mr. Kutcher, two accomplished lawyers, in the forefront, the odds started to shift, the more the commissioners heard learned arguments from the two attorneys and niche specialists among leader members of the alliance.
At stake is the binding version of the Community Standards District, the document that is the subject of the string of hearings. The latest copy was released last week.
Changes Bode Favorably?
As versions of the CSD continue to undergo substantive revisions — just as the Environmental Impact Report has and is —each change seems to mean that the Alliance’s influence over the final language is deepening.
What was cast as a onesided argument months ago has resolved into a narrowing contest of wills, apparently because of the perceived muscularity of the Alliance’s research, findings, objections and contentions.
The more times the aggressive, professionally organized citizen group appears before the County Regional Planning Commission in downtown Los Angeles, the more altitude they gather in their fight for snug oil-drilling regulations.
And like oldies on the radio, the public hearings before the Commission just keep on coming.
Next up is still another public hearing next Wednesday, Oct. 8, 9 a.m., at home base for the Planning Commission, 320 W. Temple St., Room 150, downtown.
Because of complex and voluminous changes and inter-twinings in the governing documents, a deadline that previously was announced as immutable had to be switched.
Certain Time Was Needed
The calendar gap between the Planning Commission’s vote on recommended regulations and the final, official approval by the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Oct. 21, recently became mutable.
One reason was that the documents were not yet ready.
Yesterday’s public hearing before the no-nonsense Planning Commission —billed as the drop-dead final meeting on tightened drilling regulations in the Inglewood oil field —was just the semi-final act in Culver City’s most compelling community drama of the year.
The re-re-reconditioned Environmental Impact Report, the less contentious of the two documents at stake — perhaps as thick, as amorphous and as complicated as the national financial bailout — will not be produced publicly until this weekend.
Invisible Text
Since the Planning Commission cannot vote on what its five members have not seen, the formerly unchangeable five-week gap between the Commission’s recommendation and the Board of Supervisors’ approval stamp shrank to a scant 11 days.
The Board of Sups’ deadline is not regarded as merely arbitrary because the key Supervisor, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, wants to get the regulations passed before the Nov. 4 election — when a new Supervisor could take credit — and before her pending retirement.
Scores of residents who filed into the hearing room hoping for one last swing at a three-hour opportunity to make their case, encountered a jammed agenda. Their portion of the program was truncated to just under an hour and a half, with 13 Alliance members or sympathizers speaking, many fewer than in recent hearings.
But that did not necessarily turn out to be a negative.
