Clutter of Illegal Oil Wells of Little Interest in Barrio

For 26 years, Yolanda Saavedra has lived with an oil well virtually on her doorstep. Alongside a storage tank, the old pump, unshielded from view, slowly bobs away a few feet from Saavedra’s front porch in Temple-Beaudry, a hilltop slum overlooking downtown’s gleaming new Bunker Hill skyline.

But the oil operation is not her concern, Saavedra said. “What bothers us is the neighborhood is so filthy,” she said, motioning toward the litter and the run-down houses on her block.

A few streets away, the yard in front of the aging building where Mario Chale and his family rent a small apartment is taken up by another storage tank and an old shack that houses a well. Shrugging off questions about life with an oil pump, Chale turned the conversation to his real problem. “Do you know where I can get a job?”

In this blighted barrio of dilapidated homes, the politics of urban oil recovery are a long way from the well-publicized and high-powered battle waged recently by homeowners and elected officials who pushed the issue of drilling in Pacific Palisades to the forefront of the mayoral election campaign.

Temple-Beaudry is the flip side of the squeaky wheel theory of government--an area that has attracted little attention because poor residents there are not as organized or as demanding as suburban homeowners. In terms of oil operations, the residents, more than 80% of whom are renters, have lived quietly for decades with wells, tanks, trucks and odors under conditions that city planners say are among the worst in the city and would be “intolerable” in other, more affluent neighborhoods.

The wells do not appear to pose major noise or safety problems, but their poor appearance and the manner in which they are woven among the residences has contributed to the area’s blight--”an obvious industrial encroachment,” as the planners say.

Indeed, many of the wells have operated illegally for years--their permits to continue in the residential area having expired unnoticed, city officials say. In some cases, requirements to improve the appearance of some of the 55 wells, such as screening the pumping sites from view, have been ignored, officials report.

Artis Rhoades, a city planner who works in the Temple-Beaudry area, said: “If this were West Los Angeles, it would be a different story. We’re dealing with an old, old area and low-income tenants--people whose life style is to tolerate such things. This would be intolerable in other parts of town.”

Development Nearby

The oil operations now are becoming an issue because absentee land investors fear that the wells may depress the value of their holdings and become an obstacle to redevelopment. While there is no official redevelopment plan for Temple-Beaudry, as new commercial development has jumped the Harbor Freeway there has been growing interest in the area’s future.

Because the illegal operations have not been shut down, the absentee landowners charge that the well owners appear to be getting special treatment.

Next month, the city Planning Commission will take up a proposed ordinance that could restore permits for the wells.

As was pointed out in the debate over new drilling in the Palisades, many residential areas of the city, such as Wilmington and Venice, have had to live with oil operations.

But no neighborhood has lived with it longer than Temple-Beaudry, the birthplace of Los Angeles’ oil industry. In 1892, two miners, Edward Laurence Doheny and Charles A. Canfield, struck crude in a hand-dug shaft a few blocks northwest of the downtown business district. The find ushered in a turn-of-the-century oil rush that helped fuel the city’s early growth.

In Temple-Beaudry--part of the so-called Los Angeles City Oil Field--unregulated, free-for-all drilling occurred. Yards were trampled and some people moved or tore down their homes to make way for wells. By the early 1900s, a forest of derricks spread over the hills west of the downtown area.

May Limit Development

However, there were no major gushers from the shallow field and as expectations fell, many marginal wells were abandoned.

What remains is a tangled mix of homes and low-volume wells that pump a few barrels a day.

The fear of the absentee landowners is that the wells, many of which sit near property lines, will limit new development. Without special fireproof walls, city codes ban new construction within 50 feet of an oil well.

“The physical presence of oil drilling makes it more difficult to redevelop,” said Fred Good, a real estate consultant to the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency.

That is troublesome for people like John King, a downtown businessman who owns about 20 lots in the area and is associated with others who own another 30 parcels. King hopes to see a new Bunker Hill-like commercial and high-rise residential development in the area. Noting that the old wells produce relatively little oil, King said, “I just think they’re the wrong use of the property.”

The primary “oil company” in Temple-Beaudry is a small, fourth-generation family business that has worked wells in the neighborhood for 90 years. “We’re the corner grocery store of the industry,” said Bruce Manley, manager of Manley Oil Co., a firm he took over last year when his father died.

Saavedra recalled that “Mr. Manley,” as Bruce’s late father, Kenneth, was known in the area, would knock on her door periodically and ask if the well next door was causing problems. Bruce Manley, who wears work clothes and goes into the field to help his six-man crew service the equipment, gives his home phone number to residents.

Manley acknowledged that the well sites have not been kept in the best condition in the past. But he insists that he is cleaning up the sites he owns or operates as fast as time and money will allow. He said he has installed new fencing, placed child-proof cages over pumps, cleared weeds from his lots, replaced noisy pumps and added odor-control devices.

“There are a lot of things that have to be done out there and, given a chance, I will,” said Manley, who recently married and plans to have children who can take over the business one day.

Manley contended that his zoning permits expired because the city failed to notify the well owners. The wells do have current Fire Department permits, which are more important, he said.

He said he has tried to comply with city requirements to screen his wells, but the screens were vandalized.

Want Them Shut Down

Manley claimed that other landowners, who he charged do little to keep up their rental units and vacant lots, want to shut down his wells so they can get his land at lower cost.

Somewhere in the middle of the struggle are the residents, mostly low-income renters who have found affordable shelter among the blight. Some have signed landlords’ petitions protesting the oil wells, but most seem unaware of the debate, even though they have a direct stake in the way the wells are operated and any action that might speed redevelopment--and their ouster--from the area.

Linda Avila, a longtime renter in the neighborhood and one of its few activists, has mixed emotions about the struggle between the landowners and the well owners. She said that the wells “stick out like a sore thumb” and are “an eyesore.” A classroom aide at the neighborhood elementary school, Avila said there sometimes are “frightening” gas-like odors on the playground that appear to be coming from the oil wells.

“It’s definitely a problem,” she said. “But the residents of the community think of personal problems first . . . the more scary, immediate type things, not aesthetic type things.

‘It’s Survival’

“Not getting thrown out of their apartment” is the chief worry, she said. “It’s survival.”

Dora Gamboa, 69, a homeowner who has lived in the area for 52 years, agrees. “Other things are more of a nuisance,” she said, citing weed-covered empty lots, graffiti-covered walls and the prospect of redevelopment forcing her out of her home. “We haven’t got the finances to get out and move. . . . If I’m going to get out of here and go take on a mortgage at my age, I’d never be able to pay it.”

Planning officials discovered that the wells were operating illegally two years ago after the City Council approved a little-noticed ordinance, sought by the oil companies, that was designed to encourage additional drilling in the area.

When the well-owners applied for drilling permits, officials checked files for the Temple-Beaudry area and found that most of the wells there were continuing to operate even though their permits had lapsed years before.

The ordinance to encourage additional drilling had been opposed by the Planning Department, but had the support of Councilman John Ferraro, who represents the area and has received modest but regular campaign contributions from well owners, totaling about $1,500 over the last three years.

Residents Lack Clout

Ferraro said the ordinance did not attract the same attention as the Palisades proposal because wells were already in the Temple-Beaudry area and “you didn’t have affluent people down here (at City Hall) everyday.”

Some Temple-Beaudry residents said they knew nothing about the drilling ordinance and were surprised when several new wells were drilled in the area last year. Ofelia Banuelos, who lives across the street from one of the drilling sites, said she did not learn what was happening until workers began tearing down a house. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s ugly.”

Ferraro said the well sites need to be improved. But he added, “I think wherever we can extract oil in a safe manner we should.” Until recently, there have been no complaints about the operations, he said. However, he acknowledged that many residents may speak little English or may be illegal aliens who are reluctant to contact City Hall.

No citations were issued on the illegal wells because the city’s zoning enforcement manpower is so limited that it can only respond to complaints, said Art Devine, chief of the division that oversees enforcement of oil well permits. Apparently, no Temple-Beaudry residents complained, he said.

‘Different Priorities’

“People have different priorities. What may be undesirable to one group of people may not be to another,” Devine said.

One young Latino woman, who has lived across the street from one of the pumping sites for four years, said it sometimes smells. “It’s kind of ugly having that around here,” she said. But she seemed perplexed when asked why she had not complained to city officials. “What difference does it make, if they want to do it?” she asked.

Planning officials have recommended that some of the existing wells be shut down because they are exacerbating the area’s problems and at odds with the intent of the city’s General Plan.

But Jack Sedwick, a zoning hearing officer specializing in oil well operations, said the wells have been allowed to continue pumping while staff members work out a procedure for reviewing the operations.

Preparing Ordinance

The Planning Department is preparing to ask the City Council to pass an ordinance that will require all of the wells to be the subject of formal hearings and staff review. Conditions governing operations and requiring screening and landscaping could be imposed, or permission to continue operating could be denied, Sedwick said.

Longtime resident Avila fears that those who live in the neighborhood may not gain much from the debate. The oil well owners and the landlords both have political power and their own interests, she said. “You have a situation of the strong against the weak.”

Living with the oil wells is a nuisance for residents, she said, but losing their homes because of new development would be worse. “The priority is staying here . . . being uprooted can be devastating. Wells are not that devastating.”