Culver Crest activist John Kuechle said today that he has “a lot of foundational questions” to pose at two informational meetings on greatly expanded oil-drilling in the adjacent Baldwin Hills oil field that Los Angeles County has scheduled with residents on Thursday and Friday evenings next week.
“I don’t know that the format will be for the meetings,” he said. “But I imagine they will start pretty fundamentally, explaining that EIR stands for environmental impact report.”
Mr. Kuechle, one of the Crest leaders in manning this project for the last 2 1/2 years, said that he wants to ask “very technical” questions of County officials to deepen his understanding of the degrees of impact of drilling that some residents have feared could start any day.
Last Saturday, the moratorium against drilling that had been imposed on PXP, Plains Petroleum & Exploration, expired.
What are PXP’s short-term intentions? “They have told us,” said Mr. Kuechle, “they have no immediate plans to start drilling.”
In recent days, Mr. Kuechle, whose family has lived on the Crest since 1979, has gone on widespread alert.
He has been busily circulating emails into neighborhoods, hoping to spark an interest, or at least curiosity, among some of the 2 million residents within range of the oil field. His informal missives are wrapped around a warning of the potential dangers once Plains Petroleum & Exploration, PXP, resumes drilling, possibly any day.
“The extent of public participation at these hearings will be a critical factor in the County’s determination of whether it should adopt a tougher set of regulations than the ones proposed by PXP,” Mr. Kuechle is telling email recipients.
Another of his emails was addressed to School Board members.
A Warning to Parents
It read:
“As you are probably aware, L.A. County just released their (environmental impact report) looking at the PXP oil field.
“Many people (including myself) had not thought much about the oil field until the major gas release in January of 2006, which had a huge impact on Culver Crest —so much so that (our family) actually had to leave our house at 3 a.m.
“We have finally been able to convince West LA College to participate in this process, since they would face significant problems if a similar gas release were to occur when the campus was full of students.
“Until now, I had not realized that Culver City schools were also at risk. The EIR includes a map showing the areas that are at risk of suffering odor impacts as a result of oil field operations. While the copy of this map that is included in the EIR is cut off and does not show all of the impacted area, the complete map (a copy which is attached) shows that the area at risk includes El Rincon, the High School, the Middle School and Farragut. The EIR does not provide any guidance as to what might be expected from a gas release that exceeds 0.5 of the odor threshold, but I can tell you that my home is also in an area shown in yellow on the map, and I can assure you that the level of odor we experienced in 2006 would have been a dramatic problem for a school full of children.
“I would like to encourage the School District to become involved in the EIR process, and certainly to send a comment letter to the County setting forth any concerns you might have. It would be even better if representatives of the School District (as well as parents and students) could attend the public hearings on the EIR, one of which is scheduled to take place at West Los Angeles College at noon on Saturday, August 2.
“If the School Board and the District Staff determine that more stringent regulations are in the best interest of the School District, I would hope that you could inform District parents of the situation and encourage them to attend the meetings, which begin in less than two weeks.
“I would appreciate it if you would forward this email to the appropriate people on the School District staff. In the event you or they are interested, the EIR can be found on the web at:
http://planning.co.la.ca.us/spBH.htm”
Here is a list of 4 meeting dates:
Thursday, July 10, 7 p.m. — Informal coffee-information session at 10659 Cranks Road, Culver Crest.
Friday, July 11, 7 p.m. — Informal coffee-information session at 3731 Stocker St., Suite 201, Los Angeles, the office of the Community Health Councils.
Thursday, July 17, 7 p.m. — Public workshop at the Vets Auditorium, the intersection of Culver Boulevard and Overland Avenue.
Tuesday, July 22, 7 p.m. — Public workshop at the Knox Presbyterian Church, 5840 La Tijera Blvd., Los Angeles.
Saturday, Aug. 2, 12 noon — County Planning Commission meets at West L.A. College
