West, Texas Regulators Environmental Impact Report (EIR) Should NOT Have Been Trusted

Texas regulators knew in 2006 that the fertilizer facility that burned and exploded in West, Texasa had two 12,000-gallon tanks of anhydrous ammonia and was near a school and neighborhood, documents show. However, West Fertilizer Co., of West, Texas, told Texas Commission on Environmental Quality permit reviewers that emissions from the tanks would not pose a danger. That assertion was based on expected routine emissions, not the possibility of a catastrophic failure.

As a permit condition, the TCEQ required the company to build a wall between the tanks and a public road to prevent passing vehicles from striking the tanks. The company complied and on Dec. 12, 2006, the agency’s executive director issued an operating permit for the tanks, which already existed.

E&B Natural Resources is claiming that putting up this wall below will protect us from a similar explosion, fires and blowouts.  Are they lying as well?

Capped Oil Wells Beneath Homes & Ocean Can Blowout

Capped Oil Wells That Could Blowout in Redondo Beach & Hermosa Beach

Capped oil wells are a real danger in the South Bay.  Pat Aust the Redondo Beach City Councilman and former firefighter knows first hand of the dangers.  Hermosa Beach has a handful of capped wells and some are out in the Ocean as you can see.  However, Redondo Beach has hundreds of them underneath homes and Manhattan Beach has plugged oil wells at Mira Costa High School.  Here is an explanation to help you understand the potential threat to our community if slant hydraulic pressurized oil drilling is permitted underground.

Oil drilling blowout preventers (BOPs) can be used on the drilling site itself on the surface to mitigate risk.  However, blowout preventers CANNOT be used on capped wells or adjacent wells underground & in the Ocean.   If an adjacent capped oil well were to blow on the ocean seabed it would cause a massive oil spill and mess on up and down the coast.  The ocena seabed well could be capped but would required significant emergency effort (like the BP Spill in the Gulf) and would change the integrity of life in the South Bay as we know it.  If an adjacent capped oil were to blow underground beneath homes.  Lives and homes could be lost because an explosion is highly likely.  Residents in Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach who own homes over a capped underground well would never know about the problem until it is too late.  Do we really want to trust the that the integrity of the well was capped properly 30 or 40 years ago?

Crude oil is a flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Because hydrocarbons and gas are lighter than rock or water, they often migrate upward through adjacent rock layers until either reaching the surface or becoming trapped within porous rocks (known as reservoirs) by impermeable rocks above. However, the process is influenced by underground water flows, causing oil to migrate hundreds of kilometres horizontally or even short distances downward before becoming trapped in a reservoir. When hydrocarbons are concentrated in a trap, an oil field forms, from which the liquid can be extracted by drilling and pumping at high pressure. The down hole pressures experienced at the rock structures change depending upon the depth and the characteristic of the source rock.  The deeper the well the more risky the operation.  E&B is proposing deep wells.

Blowouts happen all the time and are daily occurrence in the oil industry.  Don't convince yourself it can't happen here because Steve Layton knows too well from his Blowout in Louisiana which bankrupted Equinox Oil.

Here is another conclusion that supports this argument from the Coastal Commission.

Redondo Beach Considers Oil Drilling To Protect Reserves

Former Tritton Oil Drilling Site (Dirt Lot) Harbor Dr & Portofino Way in Redondo Beach

Former Oil Drilling Site 190th and Prospect in Redondo Beach

The Redondo Beach City Council took a the first step toward exploring oil drilling within city limits to boost city revenues on Tuesday. Read the RB Patch Article.

In a referral to staff, Councilman Steve Diels, who represents District No. 4 in North Redondo Beach, asked City Manager Bill Workman if city staff could examine whether Redondo Beach could tap into the "hundreds of millions of dollars" sitting beneath the city.

Additionally, Diels asked if city staff could look into the effects of possible oil drilling in Hermosa Beach on Redondo's reserves. Both cities sit on top of the Torrance Oil Field.

The councilman noted that money from potential projects could be used for various capital projects, and even implied that revenues from oil drilling could be used to pay for a park at the AES Powerplant site on Harbor Drive.

Bill Brand, who represents District No. 2. "In general, though, I don't support that kind of industrial activity going on in our town."

If the city does eventually decide to allow oil drilling, it would not be the first time oil wells were dug in Redondo Beach. According to the Redondo Beach Historical Society, wells dotted the city during the 1920s.

Lets not forget Tritton Oil & Gas Corporation abandoned the site in 1990 at 101 Portofino Way, Redondo Beach 90277.

Related Articles: 
Pat Aust recalls oil fire in Redondo Beach.
Tritton Oil & Gas Corporation oil well abandonment in 1990 
Hermosa pursuing legal action against Oil Operator Roy Stinnett in 1991 (LA Times)
Map of regional oil wells in the South Bay.
Is the AES Redondo Beach Powerplant Related to Hermosa Beach Oil Drilling