Council Votes to Prepare for Lawsuit Over Oil Pipeline

Amid a heated jobs-vs-the-environment debate, the Los Angeles City Council took preliminary steps Tuesday to challenge a proposed pipeline that would pump hot crude oil through the heart of the city.

While the council stopped short of ordering a lawsuit, it instructed the city attorney’s office to be prepared to launch a legal challenge as soon as environmental studies for the pipeline are approved by the state as early as March.

Such a lawsuit would cast the city as the most powerful opponent to thus far challenge the $215-million project backed by Chevron, Unocal and Texaco oil companies.

The biggest concern raised by council members is that the studies for the proposed 132-mile pipeline from Kern County to Wilmington have largely ignored the potential for contaminating 75% of the city’s water supply if a rupture occurred around the city’s main aqueducts and reservoir near Sylmar.

“We cannot move forward with a pipeline that can threaten 75% of this city’s water supply,” said Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents parts of the northeast San Fernando Valley where the pipeline would run.

But Alarcon’s comments were met with hisses from members of several labor unions in the council chambers who said the pipeline would create hundreds of good jobs, particularly for low-income minorities.

Jim Fees, a representative of the Pipefitters, Welders & Apprentices union, said the pipeline could mean 50 to 60 jobs for his union, plus hundreds more jobs for other labor groups.

In its promotional literature, Pacific Pipeline System Inc., the Los Angeles-based company that is proposing the project, vows to create 670 new jobs in the city, with salaries ranging from $17 per hour to $35 per hour.

Bonny Matheson-Capobianco, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., opposed the council action, saying it sends an anti-business message at a time when the city wants businesses to expand and create jobs.

“We are kind of aghast at this,” she said.

As proposed, the pipeline would transport 130,000 barrels of crude oil daily from Kern County to refineries in Wilmington. It would also branch west to Chevron’s El Segundo refinery.

The pipeline would travel along the Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way parallel to the Golden State Freeway from Kern County through central Los Angeles and then along the Alameda Corridor to the harbor. Along the way, the pipeline would cut through the Santa Clarita Valley and a dozen cities, including Burbank, Glendale, San Fernando, Carson, Compton and Hawthorne.

Advocates say the pipeline would actually improve the environment by reducing the emissions generated by trucks, trains and ships that now carry crude oil to the refineries along congested freeways.

Charles McLean, a representative of Pacific Pipeline, rejected concerns about a rupture contaminating the city water supply, saying that the aqueduct runs near major freeways and rail lines and that there is a greater danger that trucks and trains carrying crude oil could crash and contaminate the water.

George Mihlsten, an attorney and City Hall lobbyist hired by Pacific Pipeline, said a committee of the council should at least hold a hearing before the city decides whether to challenge the environmental report.

“We think there is an issue of fairness and due process here,” he said.

But a visibly steamed Alarcon said the pipeline is a real threat.

He recalled watching an aging oil pipeline that ruptured during the Northridge earthquake, emitting 30-foot-high flames along Wolfskill Street.

“I witnessed that,” he said. “I was 100 feet away and you could have roasted marshmallows from there.”

Councilman Mike Hernandez, who represents parts of East Los Angeles, drafted the motion, asking the city attorney to launch a legal challenge if the state Public Utilities Commission certifies the pipeline’s environmental studies without “adequately addressing the city’s concerns.”

He told his colleagues that the motion simply sets the stage for a lawsuit if the pipeline’s environmental studies fail to alleviate the council’s concerns. The council would make the final decision on whether or not the studies have met those concerns.

Pipeline officials said the PUC may certify the environmental report as early as March and construction on the pipeline could begin by the spring.

During the hearing, Hernandez and Alarcon both cited a June 6, 1995, letter from the Department of Water and Power that warns of a potential pipeline rupture contaminating the water that runs through the aqueducts near the intersection of the Golden State and Foothill freeways.

The aqueducts “deliver approximately 75% of the water supply to the city of Los Angeles, with a replacement water cost, if available, of over $310,000 per day,” according to the letter.