Alternative Route : Firms Consider Piping Oil Through Mid-Valley

A consortium of four major oil companies is considering a route for a crude-oil pipeline that would run through the central San Fernando Valley from Granada Hills to Sherman Oaks.

The proposed pipeline will be the subject of a public meeting held by the California Department of Transportation at 6:30 tonight at John Marshall High School in Los Feliz. It will be the last of three meetings to gather public comment about state and federal environmental reports on the proposed Angeles Pipeline.

The pipeline is designed to carry crude oil from the coast of Santa Barbara County to refineries in southern Los Angeles County. It is to be built by a consortium called the Southern California Pipeline System. Caltrans was designated to oversee preparation of environmental reports for the state. The U.S. Forest Service is supervising preparation of reports for the federal government.

Buried Near Streets

The 30-inch pipeline would be buried three to four feet under or beside streets and highways for most of its length in urban areas.

The pipeline would enter the Valley on San Fernando Road in Sylmar. The primary proposed route heads east on Foothill Boulevard and south through Burbank, Glendale and Griffith Park.

However, an alternate route that is also under consideration would run through the middle of the San Fernando Valley, executives of the pipeline system said.

The alternate route follows Balboa Boulevard south through Granada Hills, Northridge and Van Nuys to Victory Boulevard. It would swing east on Victory to Sepulveda Boulevard, then follow Sepulveda south between Sherman Oaks and Encino over the Santa Monica Mountains and into the Los Angeles Basin.

Pipeline executives said the main inconvenience for residences and businesses along the pipeline route will come from traffic disruption during construction, when the pipeline trench will be dug into streets, the pipe laid, and the streets repaved.

Construction at any one point in an urban area should take five to 10 days, said T. W. Shettler, environmental and permit manager for the pipeline system, which was formed by Atlantic Richfield Co., Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co. and Texaco Inc.

The primary proposed route would go into Burbank beneath Glenoaks Boulevard, proceed south under Buena Vista Street to San Fernando Boulevard, then to Victory Place and Victory Boulevard through Glendale to Griffith Park. There it would cross into Los Angeles and head south under Western Avenue.

In Gardena, the pipeline would divide into branches running to the Chevron refinery in El Segundo, the Arco, Texaco and Shell refineries in Wilmington and the Hynes Tank Farm in north Long Beach, from which pipelines run to other refineries.

The pipeline is designed to become the second stage of a system that would carry 330,000 barrels of crude oil a day to the Los Angeles-area refineries from the Santa Maria Basin and the offshore wells in the Santa Barbara Channel, which are expected to greatly increase their output during the 1990s.

The $225-million Angeles Pipeline would connect about 22 miles south of Bakersfield with a $175-million pipeline from Gaviota, on the coast north of Santa Barbara, and carry oil south across the Tehachapi and San Gabriel mountains and through the Santa Clarita Valley before entering the San Fernando Valley.

The oil companies hope to begin construction in mid-1987 and complete the line by late 1988.