The city council on Wednesday took a major step toward banning new oil and gas wells in Los Angeles, as well as beginning the necessary amortization process before phasing out existing oil and gas wells.
The members of the Council unanimously approved a number of recommendations from its Budget and Finance Committee, including:
– to have the Department of City Planning and the City Attorney’s Office draw up a decree banning new oil and gas extraction and making extraction activities an inconsistent application in all areas of the city;
– to have the Los Angeles Office of Petroleum and Natural Gas Administration and Safety hire an expert to carry out an amortization period for existing wells, a precondition for shutting down existing oil fields to allow the oil company to recoup its investment if it does not have already done so; and
– to have the Los Angeles Office of Petroleum and Natural Gas Administration and Safety create a framework for clogging and repairing abandoned oil wells that can leak hydrocarbons and methane, with the intention of making the oil companies responsible.
The executive order banning future oil drilling must come back for another vote in the city council.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted last year to ban new oil and gas wells and phase out existing wells in unincorporated areas.
The city of Los Angeles has 26 oil and gas fields and about 5,274 oil and gas wells, according to the Department of City Planning. Seventeen drilling sites are either active, inactive or performing gas drilling operations.
“There are oil and gas facilities in almost every part of the city’s 503 square kilometers,” Vincent Bertoni, director of the Department of City Planning, wrote in a September 23 letter to the city council’s budget and finance committee.
Nearly a third of Los Angeles’ oil and gas wells exist outside drilling sites and are spread throughout the city, Bertoni added, citing data from the California Geologic Energy Management Division.
“This is a significant step forward for Los Angeles, and a clear message we are sending to Big Oil,” said Councilor Mitch O’Farrell, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Energy, Climate Change, Environmental Justice and the River, in a statement to City News Service .
“These actions – drafting a decree declaring oil drilling for non-compliant land use throughout the city, launching an amortization survey, properly cleaning up all abandoned wells and the city’s participation in a task force to protect and assist workers – are crucial to our ambitious ‘LA100’ effort that will achieve 100% carbon-free energy in Los Angeles by 2035.
Speaking before the vote Wednesday, O’Farrell said LA’s actions would be “a model for the nation and the world.”
The potential executive order to phase out existing oil wells will rely heavily on the amortization study, according to the Department of Planning, which recommended in its report to the Budget and Finance Committee that the city go ahead with the executive order to ban future oil wells temporarily because it does not require an amortization study.
Several council members on Wednesday thanked the STAND-LA coalition for its work in pressuring the city to ban oil drilling.
“What the STAND-LA coalition has been doing after all these years has fundamentally changed the way we look at this issue. It has fundamentally changed the way I look at this issue, “said Councilman Paul Krekorian.
The coalition said on Twitter that the move was “a historic moment for front-line communities on the front lines of oil extraction. #NoDrillingWhereWereLiving.”
Ashley Hernandez, a Wilmington youth organizer for the STAND-LA co-chair organization Communities for a Better Environment, spoke with council members at a news conference outside City Hall on Wednesday.
“I’ve lived in the front line of the neighborhood’s oil drilling all my life and can not begin to express what I feel inside being here in this moment after all the many years of work that residents, partners and allies in the front line have fought for, ” she said.
Hernandez credited the council’s action to “the courage and resistance of black and brown communities rising up against oil extraction that do not belong in our neighborhoods.” She said she grew up in Wilmington, experienced nosebleeds and eye infections and saw teachers getting sick due to oil drilling in the community.
“Days like today remind us that every single signature, every single vote, every single action and every single person who has come from the front line of neighborhood oil drilling has meant enough.”
Councilor Joe Buscaino, representing Hernandez’s Wilmington neighborhood, said before the vote:
“To say that the problem that lies ahead of us hits close to home for my district would be a serious understatement, colleagues. My district… had the highest concentration of oil and gas wells in the city with nearly 400 active wells. I in my district we are home to over 55% of the active places in the whole city… you can imagine the disturbance that this would cause on a daily basis. ”
In response to a request for comment, the California Independent Petroleum Association City News Service sent a 2019 letter, which its CEO sent to Council Chairman Nury Martinez, in which he opposed the city’s efforts.
According to the letter, “increased setbacks and additional restrictions … will destroy the vitality of the city of Los Angeles by: eliminating thousands of high-paying middle-class jobs; costing the city tens of billions of dollars; giving away tens of millions of dollars in local tax revenue; raising the cost of living for all Angelenos; exacerbation of the housing and homelessness crisis; and threaten Angelenos’ economy and livelihoods by increasing reliance on unreliable foreign oil resources. “
Several people convened the city council meeting on Wednesday to express their support for an end to the neighborhood’s oil drilling ahead of the vote.
Many community groups have lobbied Los Angeles to stop oil drilling, citing the damage it has done to communities that are disproportionately felt in working-class and colored communities.
“Communities in LA have called for an end to urban oil drilling and have been rejected for years,” said Food & Water Watch Senior Organizer Jasmin Vargas.
“But with the adoption of this resolution, Los Angeles has the opportunity to create a path to clean energy with a fair transition for oil workers. Climate action like this can and should be replicated across the state. I hope Governor (Gavin) Newsom looks with . “
Newsom proposed new rules on Oct. 21, according to which new oil wells or drilling facilities in California should be at least 3,200 feet from homes, schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other “sensitive locations.” Newsom mentioned the effects of drilling toxic chemicals have on communities including asthma and birth defects. The proposal undergoes an economic analysis and public comment before it enters into force. The governor has also called for a nationwide phasing out of oil extraction by 2045.
A USC study published on April 15 linked life at urban oil wells along with wheezing and impaired lung function, symptoms disproportionately borne by colored people in Los Angeles.
In some cases, the respiratory injury could compete with the daily exposure to passive tobacco smoke or living next to highways that spew out car exhaust, the researchers found.
The study focused on drilling sites in two neighborhoods in South LA, Jefferson Park and North University Park, but could have consequences elsewhere in the region. About a third of LA County residents live less than a mile from an active drilling site – and some live as close as 60 feet.
“Oil and gas extraction is happening in densely populated neighborhoods next to where residents live and go to school,” said researcher Jill Johnston, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. “In this community-driven research, we found that living close to oil sites is associated with lower lung function. These results persist across ages, genders, and racial / ethnic groups.”