By snoadmin
According to the article, Assembly Bill 2165 would allow for new contracts for exploration and drilling at the Wilmington Oil Field.
“This is an excellent outcome that creates the opportunity for significant, long-term increases for the city and the state,” said Bob Foster, Long Beach mayor, in the article.
Environmentalists from the Long Beach and Los Angeles areas traveled to the state capitol opposing the measure because it does not require a new environmental impact report.
The Sierra Club is among the organizations asking for revisions.
“The honest answer to our oil problem is to use less of, and that means better, faster fuel economy standards and a shift toward renewable energy,” states the California Sierra Club website as one of the reasons they do not support drilling.
In the PT article, city officials argued that an environmental review is not needed, since an environmental review was already conducted in the 1970s, and drilling would be regulated by new air and water-quality laws.
Stanley Finney, the Long Beach director of the environmental science and policy department at Cal State Long Beach, said that onshore drilling does not affect the environment that much.
“It only puts more holes in the ground,” Finney said. “Compared to an oil spill [in the ocean], or the number of homes on the coast, it doesn’t do that much.”
According to Finney, sometimes taking oil from the ground can cause rocks underneath to shift, and sometimes land can subside, but the oil companies inject fluids back in the ground to stabilize the land.
Compared to oil spilling through the streets, or offshore drilling, however, Finney said, onshore drilling isn’t as disastrous.
According to the Los Angeles Almanac website, the Wilmington Oil field is the second largest oil field in California.
