Huntington Beach : City May Add Fencing Around Oil Machinery

City fire officials are weighing a preliminary recommendation to increase safety precautions around operating oil wells after the recent death of a 5-year-old boy.

Under the proposal, the height of fences surrounding the pumping machinery would be raised by the addition of three strands of barbed wire.

“This is strictly within the department at the moment, coming to me from our staff inspection team,” Fire Chief Ray Picard said Wednesday. It would next go to the city staff and, if approved at that level, on to the City Council, a process that could take 30 to 45 days, according to Picard.

Dana Loren Rogers was crushed when he apparently fell into pump machinery after scaling an eight-foot fence surrounding a well inside a condominium complex near Adams Avenue.

Picard said the city requires operating wells to be isolated by enclosures at least six feet high. Basically, the barbed wire proposal calls for three strands to be added regardless of the height of the fences or walls surrounding the estimated 800 operating wells within the city. “Of course, that would be open to alternative measures and interpretations of what would be considered reasonable safety within the community,” Picard said.