With the next community meeting on oil drilling in Baldwin Hills coming up on Thursday night, at 7, at the Vets Auditorium, Mike Bauer hopes it will be more illuminating than the first meeting in the series, last Thursday night at a home in Culver Crest.
The president of the Culver Crest Homeowners Assn. was disappointed by the outcome of last week’s neighborhood meeting that drew plenty of people, more than a hundred , and was accorded ample time close to 3 hours.
But the third piece of the puzzle did not happen.
Information-starved residents sought hard, precise data. They went away unsatisfied. They wanted solid assurances that the government agencies that will be overseeing the ambitious agenda for oil drilling set by the Petroleum, Exploration & Production company will be closely watched and regulations enforced, residents claim for the first time.
“Somebody has to be responsible,” said Mr. Bauer, for potential violations of the oil drilling rulebook that is being finalized by Los Angeles County this summer to guide PXP.
A Judgment Call
Mr. Bauer said that Jon Pierson, the mastermind behind the regulations that will govern PXP, “did a decent job” as the County’s designated answer man at the Culver Crest meeting. But Mr. Pierson’s sphere of knowledge and influence were so limited that he was unable to impart more than a modicum of the information and assurances residents wanted.
“I have met with him before. He has tremendous knowledge in this arena. I don’t know who is pulling the strings. I don’t know whether Mr. Pierson can stand up to the pressures of what he is facing. I assume he is facing pressures. The public always has a jaundiced view of what goes on behind closed doors in political boardrooms. Is he going to be able to put into this EIR what he really believes — or what he knows will pass? I don’t have an answer.”
After hearing dozens of questions and the County’s responses, Mr. Bauer is not optimistic that enforcement, criticized in the community for long being too lax, will smoothly morph, practically overnight, into tight oversight.
“I hate to be cynical about it,” he said. “But when a gas and oil company is getting $140 a barrel, gets fined $25,000 for a violation here or $10,000 for a violation there, that is one minute’s worth of oil. Even once regulations are established, what is PXP’s motivation to even abide by this EIR?”
Addressing enforcement specifically, Mr. Bauer said that “I hate for these people to waste all this time, all this money, all this public arousal to come up with regulations that will lie on deaf ears because of a political issue. I will tell you what the political issue is. The oil company generates an awful lot of money for the County’s coffers. Is the County going to shut down PXP and cut their own throats for the sake of public health? I would hope the County is that conscientious. But they haven’t shown any sign so far.”
Pulling for a Supervisor
The ultimate decision on the fabric of the regulations and the strength behind them lies with the County Board of Supervisors. What makes the present scenario uncommonly fascinating is that the supervisor for this rregion, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, is retiring just before he end of the year after 16 years, 4 terms in office.
One of the major political mysteries of the summer is how motivated Ms. Brathwaite Burke will be to drive home the kind of rules residents within the orbit of the Baldwin Hills oil field believe should be mandatory.
“Look at it from a political standpoint,” Mr. Bauer said. “When Yvonne retires, but the EIR is issued beforehand, she will be able to say that she was able to get a consensus, and that the oil fields will abide by this EIR. Now goodbye…
“Knowing politics as I do, Yvonne is just interested in getting this thing finished so that she can say, ‘It’s done.’
“Hopefully, one of the Supervisors will stand up and say, ‘This is an issue that involves the welfare of our citizenry.’ Hopefully the race (to be her successor) between (L.A. City Councilman Bernard) Parks and (state Sen. Mark )Ridley-Thomas will make a difference. The outcome may hinge on whether they show that they are going to take a very active role, not only monitoring the oil field, not just fining PXP, because money doesn’t mean anything to them, but actually shutting them down.
“There is going to be a public uproar if that EIR is issued and a year later (yet another gas leak) happens, and the County just says ‘Well, we thought we took care of it. I guess we’ll have to reconvene.’ That is not going to be satisfactory. It looks as if that may happen. As Jon Pierson said, ‘This is government.’ They are politicians, and they know where their bread is buttered.”
