Palisades Oil

Now that Occidental Petroleum Corp. has the approval to drill for oil in the Pacific Palisades, it would be well for all of us to accept the decision of 10 out of 15 members of the City Council and to consider that we are generally the better for that decision.

Our hard-pressed city will realize $200 million over the 20-year life of the oil project. The hillside in the area of the drilling site is definitely a slide area. Occidental will expend many millions using the latest engineering technology to stabilize the hill so that slides will not occur in the future. Occidental has indemnified the city.

While there is a surplus of oil at the present, if our economic recovery continues, we will need the Pacific Palisades oil and much more. It seems to me that the city has done a very good job of extracting plenty from Occidental Petroleum. We should keep in mind that at Camp David the United States committed to sell oil to Israel for 15 years in return for Israel giving up all the Sinai oil wells to Egypt. The United States may need all the oil that can be found in order to fulfill this obligation to Israel.

GUILFORD GLAZER

Los Angeles