(See the pdf below)
In every settlement of protracted legal disputations, the tone is at least as important as the words. As the various parties slowly start to speak up about this week’s landmark long-burning Inglewood oil field settlement between residents and the drilling company, a pattern seems to be forming:
Quiet, restrained.
“The talks have been strenuous and hard-fought,” said Ken Kutcher, a lawyer representing petitioners who brought suit against the oil drilling firm PXP, Plains Exploration & Production Co., and the County.
The precise meaning of the settlement terms is expected to gradually materialize publicly over the next 8 to 10 days.
It is a huge accomplishment surrounded with dozens of crucial nuances whose true benefits may not be immediately obvious.
County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, identified as the key person at the lever, broke the news of the settlement two days ago as his fellow Supervisors approved a sharply re-shaped agenda of safety/health/drilling regulations between PXP and residents adjacent to the Baldwin Hills oil field. Slightly deeper into the background were the murky roles played by the County, the most direct oversight agency, and the state.
“We have reached an outcome that is successful to everybody,” Mr. Kutcher told the newspaper.
“It allows all of us to move forward, hopefully to a different page in our relationships between the community, the County and the oil field operators.”
As the attorney for one-quarter of the petitioners in the complicated seeking to making drilling safer and less intrusive the next two decades, Mr. Kutcher was asked how close he came to winning all that he sought.
Little for You, Little for Me
“There is give-and-take in every settlement,” he said. “I am very pleased with the specific terms we were able to reach. Is it everything on our wish list? No. But it is a major step forward for the community.
“Personally, I am quite pleased with the outcome. And yet we all know the discussions (among about 20 parties) took a long time to hammer out something that would be successful for everybody.”
Mr. Kutcher chuckled when the agreement was analogized to remarrying one’s former spouse.
“We have struggled with our relationships,” he said. “That certainly colored the tone and tenor of our settlement discussions.
“Given the strenuousness, in some ways the first reaction is relief.
“We have augmented the Community Standards District (regulations) in ways that really matter. In ways that all are going in the proper direction to help protect the community better than the CSD did before.
“We did good things in this settlement. There were major changes that I think people would have suspected you only could accomplish if a court really had come down hard on the County.
“I am talking, for example, about reducing the total number of wells by a hundred, from 600 to 500.”
Mr. Kutcher demurred rather than calling it the most significant accomplishment. “We have a number of prominent pieces in there,” he said. “For different people, certain parts will resonate differently.
“One reason I can’t say the reduction of wells is most important is because there were so many accomplishments. And that feels good.”
While Mr. Ridley-Thomas took bows Tuesday evening at a community meeting for his leadership, his best-remembered legacy, in this role, probably will be that he reversed controversial drilling policies floridly rushed into place by his predecessor, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, during her final hours in office. Critics said she was a tool of PXP.
Here is a sketch of the main achievements, with monitoring patterns to be detailed later:
1. Reduce the number of wells that may be drilled through 2028 from 600 to 500.
2. Incentivize the abandonment of wells near residential neighborhoods and a school.
3. Reduce the number of drill rigs that can operate on the oil field at one time from three to two.
4. Provide for the use of slant drilling to drill a greater distance from residential areas and schools to the extent feasible.
5. Reduce allowable nighttime noise.
6. Require use of clean technology when feasible.
7. Conduct additional health studies and assessments.
8. Implement additional air monitoring to assess potential risks from exposure to air contaminants in surrounding neighborhoods.
9. Improved landscaping to be installed sooner.
10. Require ongoing cleanup of the oil field.
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