L.A. County’s Department of Regional Planning released a draft of its new oil and gas well ordinance, which would ban new wells throughout the county’s more than 2,600 square miles of unincorporated area and put an end to one of the Santa Clarita Valley’s oldest industries.
While the SCV has long been recognized as one of the birthplaces of the modern California oil industry — the city calls Charles Alexander Mentry’s Pico No. 4 in Pico Canyon the longest continually operating oil well in the world — the state has worked for years to lessen the Golden State’s socioeconomic dependence on crude.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stated end goal for California is carbon neutrality by 2045, with a significant action taken back in 2021 to phase out the industry by announcing no new fracking permits would be issued after 2024.
The recent county ordinance works toward several of these goals, proposing a complete ban on new oil wells or production facilities, as well as a long-term phaseout mechanism for existing wells — a 20-year amortization period on nonconforming operations, providing two decades to end operations.
The ordinance also proposes establishing performance standards related to site maintenance, such as complaint logging, bonding, well plugging, site abandonment and restoration, according to county documents.
A pair of messages left with the county’s Ordinance Studies Division did not generate a response to a request for comment Tuesday. A representative for L.A. County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the SCV’s historic ties to the oil economy, which can be seen all over the hills of Newhall, L.A. County’s 5th District, which includes the SCV, has 330 active oil and gas wells and 2,978 total, according to a dashboard from the L.A. County Office of Oil & Gas.
The dashboard, which also maps out the wells, indicates that the large majority of those, 2,176, have been plugged and abandoned.
But the SCV has not been immune from the environmental justice concerns, which were a big driver behind the push to limit wells, according to county officials in their documentation related to the ordinance.
In May, the state’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response announced the completion of a six-month cleanup from the Del Valle oil field, which is north of the Santa Clara River and west of Chiquita Canyon Landfill.
It produced more than 80,000 barrels a month in its heyday 75 years ago from 80 wells, but more recently produced about 1,000 barrels monthly from 26 wells.
Despite the dropoff in production, a well listed as inactive last year ended up spilling approximately 400 gallons in the surrounding soil, which also was seen in the river’s creek bed.
Eric Laughlin, spokesman for the OSPR, said the rated, pre-approved cleanup entity, Patriot Environmental Services, sent a bill to the party deemed responsible, which was West Energy Operating LLC. The cost of the cleanup was not immediately available.
The L.A. County Department of Regional Planning has released the draft environmental impact report for the Revised Oil Well Ordinance Project, which was led in part by the Office of Environmental Justice and Climate Health.
The public is invited to comment until Sept. 21.
A website to view the ordinance is available here: bit.ly/4ihwAw1.
Written comments can be sent to: Paulina Somosa, L.A. County Planning, Ordinance Studies Section, 320 West Temple St., Floor 13, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Phone inquiries can be made by calling 213-893-7416.
