The Baldwin Hills Park alongside active oil fields in the historic heart of African-American Los Angeles will be a two-square mile park, the nation’s largest natural urban park in over 100 years. The Park will provide the diverse and park-poor region with much needed green space for recreation and health, conservation, education, and economic vitality.
The diverse Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance is ensuring that the Baldwin Hills are clean and green for all for generations to come by engaging, educating, and empowering the community to regulate the oil fields.
There have been active oil wells in the Baldwin Hills for 84 years without any studies of the impact of the oil drilling on human health and the environment. Now, the oil field operator, Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP), proposes to expand operations and drill 1,000 new wells in the next twenty years – a new well every week.
Strengthened by years of successful struggles, the community remains more determined than ever to make the vision for a park in the Baldwin Hills come true for all the people of California to enjoy.
Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles and The City Project have filed one of four lawsuits against the County of Los Angeles to protect people, homes, and parklands in the Baldwin Hills more than oil company profits. The suit challenges the County’s environmental impact report and oil drilling regulations covering the oil field adjoining the Baldwin Hills Park for failure to provide adequate health and environmental safeguards in a dense and diverse community that has long suffered from environmental degradation and discrimination. The suit filed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) challenges the urban blight caused by the oil field operations and regulations. A flurry of lawsuits has been filed, including suits by Community Health Councils, NRDC, Culver City, and Citizens Coalition for a Safe Community.
Mark Williams of Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles said, “The Baldwin Hills Park is the greatest public works project in the history of our community. This is about the future of our children, our front yard, our back yard, our homes, our schools, our lives. We want to make sure that the oil drilling regulations protect the people, and the environmental impact report provides full and fair information to let the people decide what is best for them.”
According to Zoe Rawson, a Staff Attorney with The City Project, “We are filing this suit to protect the community against the hurtful social and environmental consequences of expanding oil drilling in a densely populated urban community, and to ensure that the people have access to justice against big oil companies and the officials elected to represent them.”
The oil field regulations must ensure that the average rate of new oil wells does not exceed the average increase of wells studied in the environmental impact report. The regulations presently would permit 600 new oils wells over the next 20 years without further environmental analysis and with only ministerial permits. The EIR studied a net increase of only 453 new oil wells.
The regulations and environmental impact report fail to reflect a vision for transition of the oil field to parklands.
Concerned Citizens and The City Project have long worked with the community to protect the Baldwin Hills community, parklands and environment. They have worked with the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance in the almost two year process to regulate the oil field and protect the people. In 2001, they helped the community stop a proposed power plant in the Baldwin Hills. The City Project worked with the community to stop a garbage dump in 2003, stop a proposal to close the Baldwin Hills Conservancy and eliminate its budget in 2005, and stop 24 new oil wells in 2007. Currently, Concerned Citizens and The City Project are working with other community leaders to enforce a 2004 Consent Decree under the Clean Water Act to fix the sewer system and stop sewer odors in the Baldwin Hills area.
Click on the following links to download each lawsuit:
The beauty of the Baldwin Hills parks and homes is marred by urban oil field blight. Download 22 images of the active oil fields taken from the final Environmental Impact Report.
Neighborhood groups, homeowners’ associations and community-based organizations compose the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance, which represents more than 50,000 households. The Alliance was convened by Community Health Councils and The City Project with technical support from the UCLA Department of Public Health to ensure community participation in the EIR/CSD development process.
Baldwin Hills in the News on video YouTube and Radio
Click on the image above to view coverage of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors hearing on the oil field regulations and environmental impact report on October 20, 2008.
News Radio
Jim Lafferty interviews NRDC's Staff Attorney Daman Nagami and The City Project's President and Counsel Robert Garcia about the Baldwin Hills lawsuits seeking to improve the environmental impact report and oil field regulations.
KNX 1070 News Radio’s Michael Lindner conducts exclusive interviews on the Baldwin Hills oil field with members of the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance and others. Listen to the KNX broadcast.
The Baldwin Hills and African Americans in L.A. and the Nation
Professor Josh Sides describes the unique role of the Baldwin Hills in the history of African Americans in Los Angeles and across the nation:
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, blacks had pushed west and south of West Adams into Leimert Park and the exclusive area of Baldwin Hills, which quickly became the heart of affluent black Los Angeles, a position it still holds today. A five-square-mile area of unincorporated hillside west of Leimert Park/ Crenshaw and south of West Adams, Baldwin Hills boasted large homes and expansive views. Largely undeveloped until the 1940s, hundreds of houses and apartment complexes were built there in the 1950s. As they had in Compton, blacks moved into new and large homes, with an average of four to six bedrooms per household. African Americans in Baldwin Hills were generally much better educated than their South Central counterparts, a fact that translated into greater job opportunities in the post-boom economy. Accordingly, just over 71 percent of all employed African Americans in Baldwin Hills were white-collar workers. Many Baldwin Hills residents were typical of those who fled South Central after the Watts riot; according to the 1970 census, 57 percent of blacks in Baldwin Hills had lived in the central city in 1965.
In addition to superior housing, residents of Baldwin Hills and the nearby Leimert Park and Crenshaw areas also enjoyed many more conveniences as consumers. While many Watts and Willowbrook residents were forced to buy groceries at overpriced liquor stores, Baldwin Hills residents had other options. The Crenshaw Shopping Center, opened in 1947, as one of the first planned suburban malls in the United States, was the most popular shopping area for local residents. And, during the 1960s, the Baldwin Hills Center and the Ladera Center also opened, offering residents even greater selection and convenience. Central to this improved consumer selection, and middle-class life in general, was the greater mobility of Baldwin Hills residents relative to blacks in the central city. Whereas 57 percent of Baldwin Hills households had one car, and 37 percent had two or more cars, a survey of Watts residents found that 57 percent did not own a car.
Perhaps the greatest advantage to residing in Baldwin Hills was the superior quality of the area’s public schools. In 1971, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning described Baldwin Hills public schools as the “the best schools of any city area inhabited primarily by black people" and !on par with those in West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley." In addition to boasting low dropout rates and small class sizes relative to public schools in Watts and South Central, public schools in Baldwin Hills were also more racially integrated.
Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present 190-91 (2003).
Click on the image to see a poster size aerial view of the Baldwin Hills with demographic information.
Background on the Baldwin Hills CSD, Oil, and Community Health
The following documents provide background information on the Baldwin Hills community standards district, oil operations, and envirohmental and human health. Click on each title to download each document.
The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance Community Standards District
The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance is ensuring that the Baldwin Hills are clean and green for all for generations to come. The Alliance has prepared a draft Community Standards District to regulate oil drilling in the Baldwin Hills. The Community Standards District is available to download below.
“We recognize the pressure to rely more on domestic sources for crude oil in this climate of escalating prices, but we need to tap local resources in a clean, 'green,' sustainable way—the way it is done in other communities,” says Lark Galloway-Gilliam, Executive Director of Community Health Councils, an Alliance member. “Residents are asking the County to create a Community Standards District (CSD) that values the community’s well being, conservation and environmental goals more than a barrel of oil.”
The County has delayed the release of a draft Environmental Impact Report many times. At the Press Conference, Alliance members will unveil their initial recommendations for the Baldwin Hills Community Standards District and ask PXP to enter into an agreement with the County to maintain the conditions of a moratorium on new oil drilling until a final CSD is adopted by the Board of Supervisors.
The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance recommendations include:
Eliminate potential health risks and environmental impacts associated with the oil field operation through consolidation
Provide enforceable environmental and health protections including monitoring sanctions and penalties
Provide for the clean up and eventual transition of the land to parkland consistent with the Baldwin Hills Park Master Plan
Support residential living, open space, recreation, schools, critical habitats and improve the current aesthetics of the oil field
Establish oversight from a multi-sector advisory committee including residents.
“The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance will work with the community, the County, and PXP to ensure the Baldwin Hills are clean and green for all for generations to come,” according to Alliance member Robert Garcia, Executive Director and Counsel for The City Project.
The Alliance is working to guarantee that drilling practices are compatible with the health and well being of its communities and with long-range conservation and environmental goals. “The Alliance’s CSD represents a reasonable and prudent balance of private interests in short-term profit, and public interests in livability, sustainability, health, and the environment,” says Brian Cole, Project Manager, Health Impact Assessment Project, UCLA School of Public Health.
GBHA Community Standards District
Click on each title to download the following two documents:
Visit the Community Health Councils web site for more information about what you can do to keep the Baldwin Hills Green and Clean for All for Generations to Come!
Board of Supervisors Hearing Final CSD Regulations and EIR Oct. 21 and 28, 2008
The County of Los Angeles has published draft regulations — known as the “County Draft Version 4” of the CSD — in anticipation of the Board of Supervisors taking action at public hearings on October 21 and 28, 2008.
The Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance continues to advocate for regulations that will put people, homes, and parks before oil company profits.
The Alliance continues to fight for the following major reforms:
1. The County’s draft regulations would allow too many new oil wells to be approved with no public accountability. “PXP estimates on average: 15-20 new wells operating each year,” according to PXP’s own sworn testimony and brochure. The County should hold PXP to its word and limit new wells to 15-20 each year.
2. Oil field clean up must start now. Clean up must not be deferred for decades until after “permanent facility shut down.”
3. Implementation guidelines must be prepared now.
4. The regulations must reflect a long-term vision and plan to restore the oil field to a natural state including parklands consistent with the General Plan.
And, oh yes, the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) just came out and it does not cover the draft regulations known as “County Draft Version 4” at all, but only an old, abandoned draft by PXP.
The County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing to consider the CSD and FEIR at 9:30 a.m. on October 21, 2008 at the following location:
Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
500 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
You can download the so-called Final Environmental Impact Report analyzing the abandoned draft CSD here. Unfortunately, there is no Environmental Impact Report on the County Draft Version 4 CSD! Go figure.
Baldwin Hills Draft Environmental Impact Report and County CSD
Public Comment and Review Period from June 20 to August 19, 2008
Written comments on the DEIR are due August 19, 2008, to: Paul McCarthy
County of Los Angeles
Department of Regional Planning
Impact Analysis Section, Room 1348
320 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012 http://planning.lacounty.gov/spBH.htm#Resources
The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) is available below. Hard copies of the DEIR can also be viewed at the View Park Library and Culver City Julian Dixon Library.
“This draft was prepared by the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Department in consulting with staff from other County departments, our environmental consultant and interested parties. It includes all of the mitigation measures identified in the Draft Environmental Impact Report, along with additional provisions to address issues expressed by the community through comments provided in the Planning Department’s outreach efforts. This draft is intended as a working document and is subject to change up until the time that the Board of Supervisors adopts the CSD. The upcoming public hearings will provide interested parties with an opportunity to comment on the County’s Draft CSD.”
The County’s draft builds on prior drafts by the oil company and the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance.
Public comments on the draft Community Standards District can be presented at the upcoming public hearings on August 14, August 27, and September 10, 2008.
Public Workshops
The Department of Regional Planning and environmental consultant, Marine Research Specialists, will be conducting two public workshops to provide information and receive comments on the CSD and DEIR. The workshop content will be identical to allow interested persons to attend on the date and location most convenient for them. The workshops will be held at:
July 17, 2008
7:00 pm– 9:00 pm
Veteran’s Memorial Complex
Rotunda Room
4117 Overland Avenue
Culver City, CA 90230
July 22, 2008
7:00 pm– 9:00 pm
Knox Presbyterian Church
5840 La Tijera Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90056
Public Hearings
The Regional Planning Commission will hold public hearings to receive public testimony and consider the DEIR and CSD. The hearings will be held:
August 2, 2008
12:00 pm
West Los Angeles College, Room FA 100
9000 Overland Avenue
Culver City, CA
August 14, 2008
6:00 pm
Consolidated Realtors
3725 Don Felipe Drive
Los Angeles, CA
August 27, 2008
9:00 am
Hall of Administration, Room 150
320 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
September 10 , 2008
9:00 am
County Commission Planning Hearing Room
320 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Draft EIR Documents
Hard copies of the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) can also be viewed at the View Park Library and Culver City Julian Dixon Library.
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