Transit Commissioners Delay Decision on Pipeline Route : Oil: Officials disagree over which north Valley communities should be inconvenienced by construction.

Los Angeles transportation commissioners Thursday delayed selecting a route for an oil pipeline through the San Fernando Valley to Torrance, amid continued political haggling over construction disruptions and safety issues.

Although commissioners have informally voiced approval of the pipeline plan by Mobil Oil, they said Thursday that they needed more time to consider which communities in the northern Valley will have to be inconvenienced by torn-up streets and detours during the 18-month construction period.

“I need to make sure my decision is right in my heart of hearts,” Commissioner David Leveton said.

Mobil Oil wants to replace its aging and leaky pipeline between Kern County oil fields and its Torrance refinery with a $90-million line that would be able to carry about one-third more oil.

The existing line--a series of segments ranging in age from 2 to 50 years old--has ruptured eight times in the last five years, covering city streets with gooey crude oil several times. The most recent break, which occurred Feb. 1 in Santa Clarita, spilled more than 63,00 gallons of heated crude oil into the Santa Clara River.

During a 3 1/2-hour hearing Thursday at City Hall on the 26-mile segment through Los Angeles, commissioners heard conflicting testimony from City Council members Ernani Bernardi and Hal Bernson, who advocated different routes through the northern end of the Valley.

Bernson, caught in a difficult race for reelection to his fourth term, is seeking to shift the route from a neighborhood of single-family houses on Balboa Boulevard in Granada Hills to a section of San Fernando Road in Sylmar that has a mixture of factories, small businesses, apartments and houses.

The Sylmar route would follow San Fernando Road south to Rinaldi Street, then west on Rinaldi Street and south toward the Santa Monica Mountains on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who has also entered the fray, shares Bernson’s position.

The route recommended in the environmental impact report follows Balboa Boulevard south to Rinaldi Street, then east on Rinaldi and south on Woodley Avenue.

Bernardi, who represents Sylmar, testified that Bernson is unfairly targeting the East Valley because its residents tend to be poorer than those in Bernson’s district.

“It’s a case of the affluent versus the low-income people,” Bernardi said. “Somehow this area gets all of the sordid, noxious activities in the city, including the rubbish from Lopez Canyon Landfill.”

Bernson objected, calling Bernardi’s statement’s divisive. “I don’t know how it got turned into one class of residents against another when we’re talking about homes as opposed to industries,” he said, adding that the Balboa Boulevard route would cause “terrible traffic disruption” to homeowners.

But Ken Cude, a city transportation engineer, said each route has more than 150 residences, and a roughly equal number of residents would be affected by construction of either one. Cude added that although about 40,000 cars travel daily on Balboa Boulevard--many more than the 14,000 a day on San Fernando Road--Balboa Boulevard is wider and would be less congested during construction.

Bernson also cited safety concerns expressed by the Metropolitan Water District, which operates the Jenson filtration plant, southeast of Balboa Boulevard.

F. Wiley Horne, MWD’s director of planning, said in an interview that the agency is concerned about contamination from a possible oil spill in the event that the line is installed under Balboa. Horne said that if commissioners approve the Balboa route, the filtration plant should be protected by requiring Mobil to build earthen berms or install a thicker-walled pipeline near the plant.

Earthquake faults run under both routes, but the faults under San Fernando Road pose a greater seismic threat, Cude said. However, Mobil may be able to construct the line so it can withstand some quakes, a spokesman said.

Before the project could proceed, other jurisdictions along the 92-mile-long route, including the U.S. Forest Service and Hawthorne and Torrance, also must approve it.