Latest Meeting Fails to Ease Fears Over Torrance Oil Plan

Like a hopeful suitor, Kelt Energy Co. held a second meeting with southeast Torrance residents last week, hoping to win their support for a proposal to extract oil from beneath their neighborhood. But the reluctant residents didn’t offer much encouragement.

During a public meeting of about 30 residents at Hull Middle School on Thursday, several asked questions and expressed concern about the safety of a plan to drill 50 slant wells into an oil field beneath a 648-acre neighborhood.

Kelt’s division manager, Gregg Martin, who has been trying to win the support of residents since the Torrance City Council rejected a similar project last fall, said he felt good about the exchange of information with residents.

But he acknowledged that Kelt will be hard-pressed to overcome the fears some residents still have about the project.

“You can only meet some people so far,” he said. “And if people won’t come and give their input, what can you do?”

Martin said the meeting answered many important questions and eased the concerns of some residents.

However, Lee Dickerson, who lives on 230th Street, still seemed to have concerns about safety.

“Why should we, as homeowners who are getting absolutely nothing from this project, want to subject ourselves to the possible loss” if the project causes accidents, he said.

Martin said the project would benefit residents because Kelt would become responsible for more than 405 wells, some poorly capped, that other oil companies have abandoned throughout the neighborhood.

Another man in the audience said he is tired of telling Kelt officials about his opposition to the project.

“I feel like, ‘Hey I spend better nights doing some other things at home,’ ” he said. “I’m a little angry because I really feel I don’t want (the project) . . . and we’ve got to keep coming here telling you we don’t want it.”

Thursday night’s gathering was the second public meeting sponsored by Kelt. An April meeting at the school attracted more than 100 residents. Martin attributes last week’s smaller crowd to some families leaving town for the Memorial Day weekend. Others may not have attended the meeting because many of their questions were answered at the first meeting, he said.

Some residents at the meeting said they are worried that they would not be able to collect an insurance claim if ground movement or gas and oil leaks from Kelt’s project were to cause damage to their homes.

One man said most residents would go bankrupt if they had to try to fight a drawn-out legal battle to collect damages from Kelt.

“We cannot put litigation against you people and be able to win because of the appeal system,” he said. “It would be like peanuts against big bucks.”

Martin told residents that the chances of damage caused by the Kelt project would be minimal. He said Kelt has operated a similar operation, the Del Amo Waterflood Project, in Torrance since 1987 without any major accidents.

In addition, he said Kelt plans to insure homes in the area with a policy providing coverage of $21 million per accident.

Kelt’s proposal calls for 50 slant wells to be drilled from a 2.2-acre site on the northeast corner of Sepulveda Boulevard and Border Avenue. The 30-year project is expected to produce about 27 million barrels of oil and raise about $300 million based on 1988 oil prices.

The previous project called for 108 slant wells to be drilled from the same site into a smaller, 560-acre area. The City Council rejected the project in November, after many residents had said they feared it might cause noise, dust and gas leaks and that ground movement might damage their homes and businesses.

The wells would be drilled over a 2 1/2- to three-year period by two 169-foot-tall drilling derricks, which would be encircled by a sound-dampening barrier.

Recovery Area

The recovery area would be roughly bounded by Plaza Del Amo, Apple Avenue, Crenshaw Boulevard, Western Avenue and the southern city limits. Much of the neighborhood, which includes more than 2,000 homes and businesses, is over an oil field that has already been tapped by standard drilling and pumping methods.

To force out the remaining oil, saltwater would be pumped into injection wells, forcing the remaining oil toward recovery wells. The oil would be pumped to the surface and piped to local refineries.

Once a project is rejected by the council the same or a similar project cannot be resubmitted for six months. That would allow Kelt to submit its new plan at the end of this month.

However, Martin said Kelt has not decided when to bring the proposal to the city, and he will not introduce the project until he is satisfied that residents’ concerns have been addressed.

He said Kelt believes that “a project can be put together that meets the needs of both ourselves and the residents of this area.”