Old Oil Drilling Plan Stirs Fresh Fight : In Hermosa Beach, Prospect of 30 Rigs in City Yard Mobilizes Opposition

Five years ago, the idea of drilling for oil in Hermosa Beach captured the imaginations of most residents and city officials. After all, the city could use the money to buy recreational space--such as the abandoned Santa Fe railroad right of way--to better maintain the beach and to generally relieve strains on the municipal budget.

So two initiatives were passed by the voters in 1984. Proposition P, which approved drilling at the city maintenance yard, received 60% of the vote, or 4,743 for the plan as opposed to 3,222 against. Proposition Q got 51%, or 4,009 to 3,889, and granted permission to drill at the closed South School site a block away from the city yard.

The city government set out to transform the idea into reality. That meant hiring consultants and attorneys to find a path through the thicket of technicalities and legal restrictions. It meant preparing a report on the environmental effects from the project. And it meant contracting with an oil recovery company that was willing to invest money and time to plan and prepare for the project.

Most of that has been done, and the reality is almost here, perhaps as close as six months by some estimates.

But the prospect of oil-drilling rigs appearing soon on the Hermosa Beach horizon has stirred renewed resistance from some of the residents who opposed the project in 1984. Such a project in this tiny beach community, they say, was not a good idea then, and it’s an even worse idea today.

“This is supposed to be a bedroom community, and oil drilling is heavy industry,” said Tom Morley, who began marshaling opposition after an environmental impact report was released in June, bringing the almost-forgotten project back into public view. “It will bring hazards and risks that are not acceptable to many of us.”

To George Sacks, another opponent, drilling for oil means “noise, pollution, foul odors and a lot of extra truck traffic on our streets.” He and other opponents said the oil-drilling project would undermine property values and generally detract from the town’s quality of life.

The environmental report generally concluded that an urbanized oil recovery effort, which uses high-technology mitigation measures, will have little effect on the surrounding environment.

But critics say the report is biased in favor of the project and glosses over the impact on a built-up community such as Hermosa Beach, which has about 22,000 residents concentrated in a 1.3-square-mile area. For example, they scoff at the report’s conclusion that a rig--a 135-foot tower that would be used for up to three years to drill the wells--can blend into the community, no matter how well-camouflaged it may be.

The city’s contractor, Macpherson Oil Co., based in Marina del Rey, plans to sink up to 30 wells at the city yard at Valley Drive and 6th Street and to use a portion of the South School site for processing and storage of the recovered oil. Under that proposal, the city’s maintenance operations also would be moved to the school site.

So far, opposition to the oil drilling appears to be limited to the neighborhood around the project site in the southwest corner of the city. But efforts are being made, Sacks said, to organize communitywide resistance.

“We’re in the initial stages,” he said. “But we already have about 25 people who are really becoming active. We’re planning a petition drive, we’re canvassing in other neighborhoods, and just doing whatever we can to make people more aware of this problem.”

Sacks said about 50 residents showed up at a recent Planning Commission hearing on the environmental report. Most of them, he said, were either opposed to the project or sought more assurances that it would not have an adverse effect on the town.

Speakers at the hearing said they wanted more details on the proposed operation, such as the pressure in pipelines, devices used to detect possible leaks, equipment and methods used in periodic maintenance and chemical composition of any vapors from the project.

Revised Report

Those and other questions will be answered by the city’s environmental consultant, Irvine-based Ultrasystems Inc., when it submits a revised report to the commission at its Sept. 19 meeting.

To push its fight into the political arena, the anti-oil group has fielded its own candidate in the Nov. 7 City Council elections. The election outcome could give the first indication of whether the majority of voters still supports the drilling project.

The candidate, travel writer Les Barry, has vowed to make oil-drilling a major issue in the campaign. “The idea (of drilling for oil) gets more and more ridiculous, the more we learn about it,” he said in an interview. “There’s no way you can have a project like that in a little city like this without causing all kinds of bad effects.”

Don Macpherson Jr., president of the oil recovery firm, disputed assertions that the project will be bad for Hermosa Beach. “The entire project will be regulated by the state Division of Oil and Gas,” he said. “The standards are very strict, and if we don’t meet them, they will shut us down.”

Macpherson said the project also must comply with the city’s noise ordinance. In addition, he said, “State-of-the-art vapor recovery systems will ensure that vapors and odors are not released into the environment.”

Projected Revenues

On the revenue side, Macpherson estimated that oil pumped over a 20-year period would yield $43 million for the city, $2.2 million in lease payments to the city school district and $17 million in royalties for about 750 property owners who have leased their mineral and gas rights to Macpherson. He said he based the projections on a city consultant’s estimate of the amount of oil that could be recovered.

The anti-oil group doubts Macpherson’s projections, noting that oil recovery efforts in adjacent Redondo Beach since 1955 have fallen short of initial expectations. However, the group has not come up with specific figures of its own based on expert opinion.

Councilman Chuck Sheldon agrees that oil-drilling will be a big issue in the November election. “I don’t have an opinion myself yet,” said Sheldon, whose term does not expire until 1992. “Most of the questions have been asked, but all of the answers are not in.”

One unanswered question, he said, is whether the local school district will be a partner in the oil venture. The city is negotiating now to purchase the South School site, where oil storage tanks would be placed, and the outcome will affect how the project is handled, he said.

“If there’s no deal to buy the school, then there will be two separate agencies holding hearings and slogging through the politics of the issue,” he said. “If there is a deal, things will be simplified to some extent.”

Other unanswered questions include the city’s legal obligation to honor its contract with Macpherson, the degree to which environmental effects of oil drilling can be mitigated and the amount of revenue that might be generated and how it might be spent, he said.

Money Issue Paramount

“Money is the only reason to even consider drilling for oil,” Sheldon said. “So we need to be absolutely clear on the amount of money and how it can be used.”

He said onshore oil revenues could be used for badly needed upgrading of the city’s infrastructure, such as sewers, streets, sidewalks and buildings. But the state is likely to impose restrictions on the use of money from tapping offshore reserves, he said.

The city’s present contract with Macpherson is limited to onshore oil, but Macpherson has said he intends to seek permission to slant-drill into the tidelands.

Morley and other anti-oil advocates say they are prepared to pursue other avenues of resistance, if the November election does not head off the drilling project.

On the state level, Morley said, Macpherson will encounter formidable barriers as the firm goes through a lengthy, complex permit process with the Coastal and Lands commissions. “Many issues relating to effects on the coastal environment can be raised,” he said.

On the local level, the opponents see problems for Macpherson in existing zoning and other land-use restrictions at the proposed oil-drilling sites. The area around the sites is zoned light manufacturing, and South School is designated as open space.

If political and legal resistance fails, the opponents say, there’s always the initiative recourse, the same process that gave birth to the drilling issue five years ago.