L.A. Council Votes Against Pipeline Plan
The proposed Angeles Pipeline, which would carry 330,000 barrels of oil a day under the Los Angeles Basin, suffered a significant defeat Tuesday when the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to oppose it.
Environmentalists joined with one of the council’s staunchest development advocates, Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, urging cancellation of plans for the pipeline, which would extend from Santa Barbara to the South Bay and Long Beach, running beneath the cities of Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale.
The vote was a blow to the consortium of oil companies backing the project because the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Tom Bradley would have to approve a franchise needed for construction. Bradley has previously come out against the pipeline.
But Allen F. Swanson, public affairs manager for Chevron USA Inc., said he does not believe the pipeline is dead. Asked if the council vote in effect killed the project, Swanson said, “It may or may not.” He said the council action, proposed by Councilman Nate Holden, “has nothing to do with the franchise application.”
He said the consortium, which consists of Shell Oil Co., Chevron Pipe Line Inc., Texaco Refining & Marketing Inc. and Four Corners Pipeline Co., an Atlantic-Richfield Co. subsidiary, will continue to press for a franchise.
An application, he said, will be made after the completion of an environmental impact report next month.
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