SOUTH BROADWAY DRILL SITE
Amid the revitalization of Downtown Los Angeles and Broadway Street, vestiges of the city’s dirty oil drilling past remain. The last active oil well in downtown is located in a busy commercial district, less than 1,200 feet from Dignity Health California Medical Center and a luxury apartment complex.
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FAST FACTS
WELL COUNT: 28 active wells COMPANY: Nasco Petroleum HARMFUL IMPACTS In 2006, pressure from an unknown source 4,000 feet below the ground caused Olive Street to bulge and ripple as if it were about to explode. Hot, oily sludge burst from cracks and manhole covers, causing an artificial geyser that flooded the street and caused a four-day closure Olive Street. |
Residents of a nearby apartment building were evacuated when they noticed the oily, tar-like substance seeping through their basement floor. Some residents found shelter at a temporary Red Cross shelter in a nearby high school, and they were finally allowed back into their homes three days later.
After red-tagging the building and excavating part of South Olive Street to determine the extent of the subterranean damage, the apartment building was eventually torn down and converted into an upscale apartment complex.
Parts of Olive Street were closed for repairs for almost two months as the ooze was siphoned away and the roadway repaved.
After red-tagging the building and excavating part of South Olive Street to determine the extent of the subterranean damage, the apartment building was eventually torn down and converted into an upscale apartment complex.
Parts of Olive Street were closed for repairs for almost two months as the ooze was siphoned away and the roadway repaved.
First Street in Downtown Los Angeles, circa 1900. (via Seaver Center for Western History Research, Los Angeles Museum of Natural History)
REGULATORY RESPONSE
Emergency responders were initially baffled by the cause of the oily jet, until they remembered the presence of an active petroleum site just two blocks away. They found that the operator of the well site at the time, St. James Oil Co., was injecting 160-degree water into the wells at a pressure of 1,200 psi to extract leftover crude oil from old wells.
Once workers at the site ceased pumping, the flow of oily liquid slowed and the bulge subsided. Though St. James Oil Co. was deemed the instigator of the disaster, the Fire Department acknowledged that the network of old pipelines and abandoned wells below the streets could have exacerbated the scale of the accident.
St. James Oil Co. was formally charged on nine criminal counts a few months later. Unfortunately, regulators only fined them a mere $5,000 for the injection of hot water and sediment into storm drains which piped the waste into Ballona Creek. The other eight counts included paltry $1,000 penalties for damaging Olive Street and releasing dangerous vapors and liquids.
Emergency responders were initially baffled by the cause of the oily jet, until they remembered the presence of an active petroleum site just two blocks away. They found that the operator of the well site at the time, St. James Oil Co., was injecting 160-degree water into the wells at a pressure of 1,200 psi to extract leftover crude oil from old wells.
Once workers at the site ceased pumping, the flow of oily liquid slowed and the bulge subsided. Though St. James Oil Co. was deemed the instigator of the disaster, the Fire Department acknowledged that the network of old pipelines and abandoned wells below the streets could have exacerbated the scale of the accident.
St. James Oil Co. was formally charged on nine criminal counts a few months later. Unfortunately, regulators only fined them a mere $5,000 for the injection of hot water and sediment into storm drains which piped the waste into Ballona Creek. The other eight counts included paltry $1,000 penalties for damaging Olive Street and releasing dangerous vapors and liquids.