A battle against an oil company ignited by a handful of Jewish mothers and grandmothers has grown into community-wide demand for more accountability and honesty from both Breitburn Energy, and city and state monitoring agencies.
Breitburn remains confounded by the demonstrations and petitions against its application to expand and modernize a drill site at the corner of Pico and Doheny, in the middle of the heavily Orthodox Pico-Robertson neighborhood.
Neighbors for a Safe Environment (NASE) is calling Breitburn to task over its proposal to increase production from 1,200 to 3,000 barrels of oil a day by moving from a schedule of 10 business days a month to 24 hours a day, year-round to perform the vital workover operations that keep the wells pumping. Breitburn has included in the expansion proposal plans to replace a diesel workover rig with an electric one; to build a 175-foot tower (about 18 stories) to enclose that derrick; to erect other structures to enclose most operations; and to raise the perimeter wall extending on Pico from Doheny to Cardiff from 12 ft to 25 ft. All these measures are meant to mitigate the noise and pollution emanating from the site.
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