Taken by Surprise, Official Says of Oil Pipeline Plan

The president of the Los Angeles Environmental Quality Board complained Thursday to the California Department of Transportation that San Fernando Valley residents had not been adequately notified of the possibility that a crude-oil pipeline may be built through the Valley.

Rob Glushon of Woodland Hills, speaking at a public hearing sponsored by Caltrans at John Marshall High School in the Los Feliz area, said he was unaware of pipeline plans or of three meetings this week to gather public comments until he saw a newspaper report Thursday. Glushon said he should have been alerted as president of a panel that “is supposed to monitor environmental issues and advise the mayor and City Council and other groups.”

Glushon said he checked with representatives of homeowner groups and chambers of commerce in the Valley “and I found none of them had heard of this meeting.”

“I challenge this group to have another meeting right smack in the San Fernando Valley,” he said.

Ken Steele, CalTrans’ deputy director of special projects, said the department is agreeable to scheduling such a meeting. He said CalTrans had placed notices of Thursday’s hearing in several newspapers.

The hearing was to gather comment on plans for the crude-oil pipeline through Los Angeles, including a segment that would run through the Valley from Granada Hills to Sherman Oaks. CalTrans and the U.S. Forest Service will incorporate the public comment in state and federal environmental impact statements on the proposed pipeline.

The pipeline, to be built by the Southern California Pipeline System, a consortium of four major oil companies, was designed to carry crude oil from the coast of Santa Barbara County to refineries in southern Los Angeles County.

The 30-inch pipeline will be buried three to four feet below or beside streets and highways for most of its length in urban areas. The primary route runs through Sylmar, Burbank, Glendale and Griffith Park.

Also under consideration is an alternate route through the middle of the Valley. It runs mostly along Balboa and Sepulveda boulevards until going over the Santa Monica Mountains and into the Los Angeles Basin, executives of the pipeline system said.

The main inconvenience for residences or businesses along the pipeline route will come from traffic disruption during construction, pipeline executives said.