Hermosa Beach resident Jeff Cohn was disturbed early Tuesday morning by a noise emanating from inside the Hermosa Beach Public Works Maintenance Yard. He heard a motor and the sound of hammering on pipes.
“It was loud,” Cohn said.
He took note of the noise, and later on in the day Cohn, an active Stop Oil in Hermosa activist, met with Michael Collins who shot a minute and a half video of the commotion through a fence at the yard at 6th Street and Valley Drive. The yard is the controversial site on which oil drilling has been been proposed off and on for decades, most recently by E&B Natural Resources in a forthcoming ballot measure that will go before Hermosa voters most likely in the next year.
The two then uploaded it to YouTube and Cohn sent out an email blast that said, “I guess the joke is on us and the City of Hermosa Beach can get away doing whatever they want and make up their own rules. Watch this video…”
By Thursday the video had over 110 views and the attention of concerned locals.
“As far as I was told they were drilling into the water tables for testing,” Cohn said, explaining one of the rumors he had been told by other residents for the activity. “The problem is that they’re drilling into the soil — I would assume they would at least notify the neighbors. Typically when they do an excavation there would be a sign posted.”
The red rig that was placed in the yard continued its downward mission until about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, when the task was complete. According to city maintenance employees, they drilled in about four places and the sound was no louder than the normal noises of regular maintenance yard activities.
Hermosa Beach Community Development Department Project Manager Ed Almanza was told that the procedure would be quiet, as well as told the action was approved by the city and E&B was licensed to enter the property.
“The samples will be useful to us and we’ll have the information analyzed though a lab and a report will be written and delivered to the city in four to five weeks,” said Almanza. “The city will put that report on the website where all the other information we get from the application goes.”
The reason for the sampling, he said, was to provide additional information on all the potential environmental effects of the project. Tuesday’s affair was specifically to bore 50-feet down to the water table for groundwater and soil samples to provide a base line of information for the report.
“It’s a prudent thing to do,” said E&B Natural Resources spokesperson Tiffany Rau. “We have to assess the site in its current condition so you know what needs to be cleaned up if you’re going to do something at it.”
When local environmental activist Dency Nelson first saw the video he knew they weren’t drilling for oil, but questioned what sort of testing they were doing.
“I have no knowledge, but I presumed it was something… in anticipation of the EIR (Environmental Impact Report),” Nelson said.
As part of the application process to get approval to drill oil in Hermosa Beach, E&B is required to submit a detailed rundown of everything from the current environmental conditions to action plans outlining remediation and recovery. The city was given a draft of the EIR in November and has the opportunity to request additional information before the document goes public and is available for review by citizens and eventually certified by the planning commission and city council. Tuesday’s mission was to provide additional information that the city requested.
Before the drilling began on Tuesday Tom Bakaly, the Hermosa Beach City Manager, emailed anti-oil activist Stacy Armado the previous night at about 10 p.m. explaining the upcoming day’s events.
“I gave her a heads up—I’m trying to communicate with them,” Bakaly said. “But I didn’t inform the neighborhood…Our goal as we proceed will be to try to be as open and responsive as possible. I don’t know if there will be more testing, but we’ll certainly try to make people aware as best we can about what’s going on.”
Although the activity was done by E&B on the city’s behest, Cohn wonders why locals weren’t informed about the activity by either party. For Armado the issue wasn’t about the potential disturbance but the legality of the drilling.
“We requested proof of a county permit from the city… They told us they issued a city permit and they didn’t believe they needed to get any other permits,” said Armado. “And so we called to verify whether or not they needed to get additional permits, and it turns out they did.”
Armado is currently waiting for confirmation from the county about the permitting process.
“First of all, this is work E&B is doing,” said Bakaly. “It’s something we required them to do. They did it, and they are responsible for it.”
Bakaly added that the city is inquiring as to whether Armado was right and E&B failed to get a permit from the L.A. County Health Department.
“I think this whole thing that they’re doing is just another example of the city’s lack of transparency on this issue,” said Cohn.
Nelson said he believes that the knee-jerk reactions from both the anti-oil side and the city could be avoided by better communication.
“Given the sensitivity of the subject, there should be some greater awareness of posting from the city about what’s going on,” said Nelson. “Even for them to leave themselves open for that kind of video to be posted like ‘chicken little the sky is falling’ is dangerous on the part of the city.”
For Bakaly, it’s ironic that a quest for additional transparency in the EIR resulted in community concern.
“We have to describe existing conditions,” said Almanza. “It’s all part of the major efforts the city is undertaking to make sure we will have enough information so the many questions the public will ask about the project can be answered.”
He also emphasized that when the EIR is made public, residents will have multiple opportunities to comment and ask questions.
“It’s been over a year since this happened [the settlement between the city, E&B and Macpherson Oil],” said Cohn. “They haven’t had one single public forum to discuss the agreement or anything related to the drilling.”
Although residents last voted in 1995 to instate an oil drilling ban, city voters will be required once again to settle the question at the polls as part of a settlement between the city, E&B and Macpherson Oil reached earlier this year.
For nearly 15 years, Macpherson has claimed the City Council breached its contract when it rejected Macpherson’s drilling project in 1998 for safety reasons. Macpherson was seeking more than $750 million in damages and ready to go to trial when E&B stepped in and bought the rights from Macpherson for $30 million to try and drill in Hermosa Beach. If voters approve the project and the project receives approval from other government agencies, the city will pay E&B $3.5 million — but upon approval, E&B estimates it will pay the city and the Hermosa Beach school district $519 million over 30 years.
If voters reject the project, the city is estimated to pay E&B $17.5 million.
Almanza reiterated that the reason for the reason for the drilling was to gather more information for the upcoming presentation and to be ready with answers when the public is finally able to ask questions.
“We lose credibility if we react to everything that happens,” Nelson said. “But just put a big sign out there saying ‘This is drilling…’ Just make it clear.”
At the May 28 City Council meeting the council will be asked to take official action for the first time in over a year. On the docket is the decision to hire a consultant to review the EIR and also a potential conversation about the upcoming public dialogue process.
“In this case, since the voters are the decision makers, the city’s taking extra steps in the process to make sure the public understands the content of the EIR,” said Almanza. “We have lots to share with the community about what we’ve been planning in terms of enabling public participation for this whole review process—stay tuned.”
