Plant a tree, hide an oil well in Baldwin Hills?

There's been much controversy about the boom in oil drilling around Baldwin Hills, where residents say the oil wells are noisy, unsightly and potentially unhealthy. Well, L.A. County officials now have an idea for dealing with the unsightly part: Plant lush landscaping in an bid to conceal the oil wells. Supervisor Yvonne Burke pitched the idea, which generated some support. But the Culver City News says some residents aren't convinced:

Not everyone is pleased with the plans for landscaping. "This is just makeup, I don’t want trees that cover up [the oilwells] and do cosmetic changes," scoffed Irma Muñoz, a member of the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance who lives in Baldwin Hills near the oilfields. "I want them to take those oil wells and make them healthy for us."

There has been a big push by some residents to make Baldwin Hills less of an oil field and more of a park. Over at the political blog Daily Kos, they connect the Baldwin Hills oil wars to the national debate about oil exploration and the infamous political chant "Drill Baby Drill."

-- Shelby Grad

Photo: LAT file

Comments

[Robert Garcia]

This comment is a response to Marion Michaels about demographic changes in the Baldwin Hills.

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).

For more information, visit www.greaterbaldwinhillsalliance.org and www.baldwinhillsoil.org.

[Mark Williams]

Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles and The City Project have filed a lawsuit 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, and Culver City.

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.

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.

For more information visit www.greaterbaldwinhillsalliance.org and www.baldwinhillsoil.org.

Mark Williams
Board Member, Concerned Citizens South Central Los Angeles

[Marion Michels]

Regarding the history of Baldwin Hills. The first wave of development occurred in the late 1930's w/ a second wave in the late 1950's. Baldwin Hills consisted of a different demographic up until the late 1960's.

[Robert Garcia]

The planned two-square mile Baldwin Hills Park adjoining the active oil field will be the nation’s largest urban park designed in over 100 years. Easily accessible to millions of people, with stunning views of the Los Angeles basin, the Pacific Ocean and surrounding mountains, the Baldwin Hills offer a unique opportunity within a dense, diverse, and park-poor urban community to create a world-class park for all people to enjoy. The Baldwin Hills Park in the heart of historic African American Los Angeles is the greatest public works project in the history of a community that has long suffered from environmental degradation and discrimination.

The Baldwin Hills are one of the most park-poor areas in California, with barely one acre of parkland per 1,000 people. Childhood obesity rates are among the highest in the Los Angeles region. Within a five mile radius of the Baldwin Hills there is only one picnic table for every 10,000 people, one playground for 23,000 children, one soccer field for 30,000 people and one basketball court for 36,000 people. On weekends and especially on holidays, the gates to Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, the only regional park serving 2.5 million people within ten miles, are often closed because the heavily-used park has simply run out of space.

Despite degradation due to urbanization and oil development dating back to the 1920s, many native plants and wildlife remain in the Baldwin Hills. Within minutes of urban Los Angeles, the delicate balance of plants and wildlife is maintained, where a tranquil recreational experience is easily accessible, and where people can go to enjoy the natural world that is an important part of protecting the health and quality of life in urban communities.

The transition from active oil fields to the Baldwin Hills Park will promote diverse values. Parks provide places to have fun and promote other values including human health; youth development, academic performance, and alternatives to gangs and crime; social cohesion; conservation values of clean air, water, and land, habitat protection, and climate justice; economic vitality; spiritual values in protecting people and the earth; and sustainable regional planning. Green space can provide multiple environmental benefits to clean water through natural filtration and flood control basins for parks and playing fields. Green spaces can help reduce the urban carbon footprint and global warming. Equal justice and democracy underlie each of these other values.