The Baldwin Hills Conservancy facilitates the acquisition and management of public lands by third parties in the heart of metropolitan Los Angeles, helping provide recreational opportunities while protecting and restoring the area’s natural habitat within its 2,065-acre boundaries. Baldwin Hills, long the site of oil drilling and environmental degradation, is the last, large undeveloped area of open space in urban Los Angeles County. Its 450 acres of parkland include the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, the Ladera Ball Fields, the Vista Pacifica Scenic Site, Culver City Park and Norman O. Houston Park. The hills are situated at the center of a diverse demographic area; the population within a three-mile radius is 36% African American, 29% Latino, 23% Anglo and 8% Asian.
California Performance Review's Recommendation Puts Baldwin Hills Conservancy in Jeopardy (The Planning Report interview with Executive Officer David McNeill)
2010 Strategic Plan (pdf)
Baldwin Hills is as multi-functional and diverse as the peoples who have dwelled within its borders for centuries. It is a natural wildlife habitat that houses hundreds of species of native plants and animals. Creeks and watersheds flow to the Pacific Ocean, juxtaposed with a legacy of once vibrant, swamp and riparian areas that also supplied water to more than 1 million people in the Los Angeles Basin. While almost 450 acres of its land are parks, protected by the Department of Parks and Recreation, 950 acres of Baldwin Hills remain an undeveloped, urbanized open space: home to oil derricks and unsightly pipelines. The Baldwin Hills Conservancy has proposed a plan to restore and improve these lands in order to achieve a balance between Baldwin Hills’ natural habitat and recreation for the surrounding community.
Baldwin Hills takes its name from Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, a horse breeder and landowner who bought the property in 1875 after making a fortune off silver mining in Nevada’s Comstock Lode and San Francisco real estate. Baldwin was described by writer Arthur M. Ellis as “one of the greatest pioneers of the West, the greatest builders of California, the most spectacular of libertines, and the most contradictory of characters in our annals.” He was married four times and had a string of mistresses, some of whom shot him or sued him. He died in 1909.
Oil was discovered on his Baldwin Hills property in 1916, and by 1924 Standard Oil of California was producing approximately 145 barrels a day. Production peaked the next year after 176 new wells were drilled.
Baldwin Hills was the site of the 1932 Olympic Village, with hundreds of two-room bungalows on a 300-acre site for the men. Women were housed elsewhere.
In the 1940s, plans were kicked around to build the north-south Laurel Canyon Freeway, which would have bisected Baldwin Hills along La Cienega Boulevard. It was included on the 1958 Los Angeles Master Plan of Freeways and Expressways, but was never built.
What did get built was a dammed water storage area, completed in 1951 by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power despite warnings that it rested on an unstable earthquake fault line. In 1963, the Baldwin Hills Reservoir and earthen dam gave way, releasing 250 million gallons of water into surrounding neighborhoods. Five people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed. Later studies attributed the collapse to the injection of fluids into the ground as part of a new technological approach to oil drilling and waste disposal.
The reservoir wasn’t rebuilt and 15 years later the Baldwin Hills State Recreation Area, later renamed for Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, took its place. The Baldwin Hills community had engaged in back and forth negotiations, meetings and legal battles for almost 20 years to bring a planned, natural urban park to the area. The non-profit Community Conservancy International spearheaded the movement and in 1983 the State Park and Recreation Commission classified land purchased with county, state and federal money a state recreation area.
The state Department of Parks and Recreation produced the Baldwin Hills State Recreation Area General Plan two years later and by 1989 the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area was open for business. Residential development, as well as open space acquisitions, continued apace in the 1990s, although 420 active wells still produced 6,900 barrels of oil and 3.2 million cubic feet of gas daily as of 2000.
Using “Hahn Park” as a centerpiece, the state Legislature revised its master plan for the area in 1999. Democratic state Senator Kevin Murray introduced a bill to create the conservancy in 2000, with the avowed purpose of having it “develop and coordinate an integrated program of resources stewardship . . . based upon the needs and desires of the surrounding community.”
The Legislature approved it in September 2000 with a sunset provision that would shut it down in 2008 without a vote of reaffirmation. The year of its creation, with bulldozers bearing down, 68 acres of land earmarked for development of 241 residential units were snatched from the jaws of development, renamed Vista Pacifica and added to the park at a cost of $41.1 million.
Oil and gas production in Baldwin Hills had its best years early on and had been on the wane ever since. By 2000, drilling holes in the ground looked like a spent enterprise as attention turned toward rehabilitating the land. Instead, new technology located deep reserves beneath the hills, which coincided with a precipitous rise in oil prices, and the county and state’s resolve to establish an environmental enclave in the heart of urban Los Angeles began to wilt.
It was directly challenged in 2001 when Stocker Resources and La Jolla Energy Development Inc. asked to build a 53-megawatt power plant right next to the Hahn recreation area. Residents went ballistic. More than 300 people showed up for a meeting in June, voicing outrage that the governor would consider fast-tracking the plant to avoid certain environmental reviews in a park that served a predominantly minority community. La Jolla and Stocker dropped the project a month later.
In 2003, word circulated in the community that the city of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation planned to build a 40,000-square-foot garbage dump in the park. The city council expressed its opposition and the property was removed from a list of sites for a waste transfer center.
In 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed, as part of a larger government reorganization, that the Baldwin Hills Conservancy’s status be reduced to that of a joint-power authority. The agency would no longer receive state support. But the conservancy survived.
In 2006, uncontrolled emissions of gas from the Inglewood Oil Field in Baldwin Hills caused evacuations and a temporary moratorium on drilling. Four lawsuits were filed two years later that challenged a Los Angeles County decision to allow 600 new wells to be drilled over a 20-year period. In July 2011, an agreement was reached with the county Board of Supervisors to reduce drilling, increase air quality monitoring, impose noise limits and perform regular health and environmental justice assessments.
But the drilling will continue until 2028, impacting park plans for the foreseeable future.
While the conservancy continues development of plans to unite its scattered open space and recreational areas into “One Big Park,” it is also working on a 13-mile trail to connect Baldwin Hills to the Pacific Ocean. The Park to Playa Trail would skirt the Ballona Creek through the Ballona wetlands and connect to the bicycle path already at the beach.
Rancho La Cienega O’ Paso de La Tijera (laok.com)
Baldwin Hills History (Baldwin Hills Park)
E.J. Lucky Baldwin (The Historical Society of Southern California)
History of Inglewood Oil Field (Inglewood Oil Field)
Ground Rupture in the Baldwin Hills (by Douglas H. Hamilton and Richard L. Meehan, Science) (pdf)
Serene Hilltop Marks Site of Landmark Disaster (by Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times)
1932 Los Angeles Olympic Athlete's Village in the Baldwin Hills (Baldwin Hills Park)
Laurel Canyon (California Highways)
Baldwin Hills (The City Project)
Keep Baldwin Hills Clean and Green for Generations to Come (The City Project) (pdf)
Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles (Wikipedia)
Baldwin Hills Conservancy: Meeting Objectives; More Work to Be Done (Legislative Analyst’s Office)
Baldwin Hills Park Master Plan (pdf)
Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area General Plan Amendments (pdf)
Legislation Creating the Conservancy (SB 1625)
Plan for Baldwin Hills Power Plant Attacked (by Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times)
Stocker Officially Drops Plans for a Power Plant (Los Angeles Times)
A Report on the Baldwin Hills Park and Community (The City Project) (pdf)
The Baldwin Hills Conservancy is on a mission to create “One Big Park.”
The two-square-mile zone it oversees is a mix of residential housing, open space with striking vistas, oil drilling sites, wide thoroughfares, a major creek, a fishing lake, bike paths and trails. While the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area covers 450 acres of recreational parkland, oil and gas drilling dominates another 950 acres.
The conservancy facilitates strategic purchases of open space and development by its strategic partners, which includes public and private entities. It furthers these activities with grants funded by the issuance of state bonds.
In addition to acquisitions, the conservancy helps maintain, restore and improve the open space and recreational features of Baldwin Hills. Ongoing projects include: maximizing use of the Ballona Creek, cultivation of the Stocker Corridor, execution of the Park to Playa Trail and construction of the Milton Street Park.
The conservancy provides educational resources for the community, and helps fund the Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Program run by Los Angeles Audubon and NewFields. The program provides internships to students at nearby schools, giving them training as researchers and hands-on habitat restorers.
The conservancy is run by an executive officer and a 20-member board of directors, 13 of whom are voting members. The board elects its own chairman. The conservancy was created to give the state a direct role with local government in implementing the Baldwin Hills master plan, developed by consultants under the direction of the state Department of Parks and Recreation, while promoting the state’s environmental goals.
A Report on the Baldwin Hills Park and Community (The City Project) (pdf)
Keep Baldwin Hills Clean and Green for Generations to Come (The City Project) (pdf)
Baldwin Hills Park Master Plan (pdf)
Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Program (Facebook)
Baldwin Hills Conservancy Proposition 84 Grant Program and Objectives (Conservancy website) (pdf)
The conservancy has primarily relied on bond funds generated by passage of Proposition 40 in 2002 and Proposition 84 in 2006 for grants issued to third parties for acquisitions, capital improvements and furtherance of conservancy goals.
Proposition 40 provided the conservancy with $40 million, 96% of which has been spent. Its grants included: $11 million in 2005 to the Baldwin Hills Regional Conservation Authority for purchase of a coveted 103-acre piece of property for expansion of recreational facilities; $3 million in 2003 to the County of Los Angeles for development of the 315-acre Eastern Ridge property for recreational purposes; $2 million in 2006 to the Baldwin Hills Regional Conservation Authority for acquisition of 2.64 acres along West Jefferson Boulevard; and $144,495 to the United Education Partnership for creation of K-12 education program.
In 2011, it made available $2 million of its $10 million allocation of Prop. 84 money. The money comes with strings attached; a minimum match of 25% must be provided by the grantee. Matches can come from federal or local funds, donated services or other funding sources. Among grants awarded were: $570,000 to Culver City for improvement to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and $400,000 to the Los Angeles Infrastructure Academy for invasive species removal and habitat restoration.
An $11 billion bond initiative called Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012 is headed for the November ballot and includes $20 million for the conservancy.
The conservancy’s budget operating budget for 2011-12 was $565,000. Nearly 62% of that money came from the California Environmental License Plate Fund and the rest came from bond money. None of it came from General Fund taxpayer dollars. A bit over 60% of that money was spent on salaries and benefits; the rest for operating expenses and equipment.
Proposition 84 Grant Program and Objectives (Conservancy website) (pdf)
3-Year Budget (pdf)
Statewide Bond Oversight (California Natural Resources Agency)
Meeting Objectives; Work to be Done (Legislative Analyst’s Office) (pdf)
Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012 (California Legislative Information)
Drilling Makes a Comeback
Standard Oil of California started pumping oil, about 124 barrels a day, in Baldwin Hills in 1924. Production of oil and gas from the field peaked early, and although 1,600 wells were drilled in what is now known as the Inglewood Oil Field, activity was winding down by the time the Baldwin Hills Conservancy was born in 2000.
During an eight-year stretch between 1989 and 1996, only four new wells were drilled and none were drilled in 1999. Through the long decline of energy exploration in Baldwin Hills, the landscape was littered with abandoned pipe and other assorted eyesores. But a combination of new technology and skyrocketing energy prices rekindled interest in the Inglewood Oil Field by its Texas operator, Plains Exploration and Production. (PXP).
The company estimated that only half the field’s oil had been tapped and ramped up its activities in 2001. Twenty-six new wells were drilled that year, followed by 17 in 2002, 10 in 2003, 14 in 2004 and a peak of 51 in 2005.
But in January 2006, noxious gases were emitted from the oil field; dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes and over 500 homes in outlying areas were affected. A similar incident occurred a month later. A two-year moratorium on drilling was imposed by the county Board of Supervisors while an environmental impact report (
The county was to take in to account the
PXP wanted to drill another 1,000 wells over a 20-year period and local residents wanted the drilling to end.
In 2008, with a deadline for the temporary moratorium ending, the county Board of Supervisors—including Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district included Baldwin Hills—unanimously approved an ordinance to allow 600 new wells over 30 years. Burke warned that if the ordinance wasn’t passed, the oil company would start drilling anyway. “In the long run, it's going to be better for your community, Burke told unhappy residents at the supervisors’ meeting.
Community activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson responded, “PXP won this round. There will be a Round Two.” And there was. Four lawsuits were filed by Community Health Councils, Inc. (CHC) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the City of Culver City, Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles (CCSCLA), and the Citizen’s Coalition for a Safe Community.
Petitioners claimed that the county had acted in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it failed to complete an
Baldwin Hills: How Many New Oil Wells Will Be Allowed? (The City Project)
Baldwin Hills Oil Fight - 'Drill, Baby, Drill' in L.A. (by Alex Walker, DailyKos)
Oil Drilling Plan Clears Key Hurdle (by Molly Hennesy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times)
Agreement to Reduce Oil Drilling in LA Is a Win for Public Health (by L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Joel Reynolds, Huffington Post)
The Fear of Fracking
One oil company or another has been drilling for oil and gas in Baldwin Hills since 1924. Production at what is now known as the Inglewood Oil Field was greatly diminished by 2003, when the current owner, Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP), used new 3-D imaging technology to discover an untapped reservoir of oil and gas.
As the company made a push to ramp up production, it ran into significant local opposition over a number of issues related to increased extraction, but it was another technological innovation that caught the eye of the locals: hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Fracking requires the injection of highly-pressurized water and chemicals into rock formations to create new channels for oil and gas extraction. While the Environmental Protection Agency has essentially given the process a clean bill of health, critics of the process say it leads to a host of geological problems and contamination of groundwater supplies.
Memories of the 1963 collapse of the Baldwin Hills reservoir and dam—the disaster has been linked to the unstable earthquake fault the area lies on—were still present when concerns were raised about what methods PXP was using to drill. The company said it didn’t use fracking in Baldwin Hills and had no plans to use it in the future, but not everyone was satisfied.
An agreement reached in 2011 with PXP that allows it to continue drilling operations until 2028, although at a reduced level, also included a provision requiring the company to determine the effects the procedure could have on surrounding areas.
Fracking has been driving a nationwide boon in oil and gas drilling and the industry has touted the potential of California, which contains 64% of the nation’s deep-rock oil deposits in shale formations. State regulators acknowledge they have no idea how prevalent fracking already is in California and what chemicals and other materials are being injected into the ground because they are no reporting requirements. The oil industry argues that revealing details of the process would compromise their proprietary trade secrets.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently completed a three-year study that said fracking was probably the cause of contaminated ground water in Wyoming and is investigating contamination in Pennsylvania. Ohio regulators unveiled tougher rules in March 2012 after drilling was blamed for dozens of earthquakes there. The Academy Award-nominated documentary “Gasland” featured a Colorado homeowner lighting his tap water, presumably loaded with methane from nearby fracking, on fire.
State legislation, AB 591, was introduced in 2011 that would require oil and gas companies to disclose what chemicals they were injecting into the ground and it received the support of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district includes Baldwin Hills. The conservancy did not take a position on the legislation, which stalled in the Legislature after intense oil industry lobbying led by Halliburton.
New efforts to revive hydraulic fracturing legislation include notification of landowners before fracking begins near their properties. Other efforts seek to prevent fracking on public lands. At least nine states have legislation requiring companies to disclose what they inject into the ground during the process.
Bill Calls for Disclosure of Chemicals Used to Drill (by Gary Walker, Culver City News)
AB-591 Oil and Gas Production: Hydraulic Fracturing (California Legislative Information)
Inglewood Oil Field Controversy Near an End (by Natalie Ragus, USC Annenberg School of Communication)
Culver City Groups Settle Suit with Oil Company, L.A. County (by Ashlie Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times)
California Government Has No Idea Fracking Is Happening (by Keira Butler, Mother Jones)
California Regulators: See No Fracking, Speak No Fracking (by Renee Sharp and Bill Allayaud, Environmental Working Group) (pdf)
Oil Extraction Method Widely Used in California with Little Oversight (by Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times)
Proposed Power Plant
Just about the time the state of California was setting up the Baldwin Hills Conservancy to preserve and nurture open space and recreation, La Jolla Energy Development Inc. was developing plans to put a 53-megawatt power plant in the middle of its designated area, about 650 feet from Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Park.
The company—in a joint venture with Stocker Resources, an oil company that leases the land where the natural gas plant would sit—applied with the state for fast-track approval of the plant in 2001.
The public outcry was enormous. Environmentalists, civil rights activists and the Baldwin Hills community turned out in opposition to the proposal.
In defense of the project, Steve Rusch, a spokesman for Stocker Resources, said the nitrogen oxide emissions would be less with the plant on site. The plan did not call for “a stack with billowing smoke,” he said. “If the issue is air quality, we've cleaned air quality up.” Rusch said the company had reduced emissions from the company’s 400 existing oil pumps from 374 tons to 3 tons a year. The power plant and its two 70-foot stacks would have added 18 tons of emissions a year.
In June 2001, La Jolla Energy abandoned its plans on the day the state Energy Commission was to vote on project approval. “We listened to the community,” La Jolla President Steve Wilburn said.
“The environment has won,” said Assemblyman Herb Wesson, a lawmaker who represented the area and opposed the project.
Energy Company Abandons Plans for Baldwin Hills Plant (by Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times)
Eliminating the Conservancy
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order in 2004 to transfer the authority of the Baldwin Hills Conservancy from a state agency to a local joint-authority. This meant that the conservancy would no longer receive the support or funding that a state agency would garner. The move came as a means of governmental cost-cutting, as the California Performance Review Commission (CPR) reported removing this and other conservancies would amount to $32 billion in savings over a five year period for the state of California.
Upon review of the CPR’s calculated budget, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) offered a restated figure of $17 billion in savings, if the governor’s recommendations were authorized. The LAO also noted that the slash and burn method of balancing the budget was not an effective economic tactic. “Rather than addressing the limitations and inefficiencies of each of the conservancies on a case-by-case basis and weighing those limitations against the benefits provided by each of the conservancies, the CPR makes a blanket assertion that eliminating the Baldwin Hills and several other Conservancies will save money,” the analyst’s office said.
The Center for Law in the Public Interest argued that completion of the Baldwin Hills park plans would not be possible without the conservancy. Los Angeles Times reporter Lisa Richardson wrote, “First they fought off a power plant. Then they defeated a garbage dump. Now people who have struggled for decades to transform a forlorn patch of hills and swamps into a park stretching from the Baldwin Hills to Culver City are preparing to take on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
All the conservancies survived the governor’s effort to effectively shut them down.
California Performance Review (Letter to Governor Schwarzenegger from the Center for Law in the Public Interest) (pdf)
Fighting This Conservancy Won't Be a Walk in the Park (by Lisa Richardson, Los Angeles Times)
Energy Company Abandons Plans for Baldwin Hills Plant (by Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times)
No Big Boxes in This Yard (Los Angeles Times editorial)
Energy vs. Open Space
Baldwin Hills is part residential development, part recreational park and part oil field. All three compete for consideration from city, county and state planners as the economic and social dynamics of the area evolve.
Has a balance been reached?
Yes. The Oil Company is a Good Neighbor
Oil and gas companies have been drilling in Baldwin Hills since 1924. New technology has made production more environmentally safe and less obtrusive. The drillers have been here longer than the residential population and open space developers and have a legal right to conduct their business.
Los Angeles is still a significant producer of oil in a world that is always searching for energy sources. The Inglewood Oil Field in Baldwin Hills, with boundaries of approximately 950 acres, is one of the largest contiguous oil fields in the country. California imports 65% of the oil it consumes, but all of the oil and gas it produces in state is consumed there. All of the oil pumped in Baldwin Hills is refined in Southern California.
The Inglewood Oil Field in Baldwin Hills, currently operated by Plains Exploration and Production (PXP), is arguably the most heavily regulated oil field in California by virtue of the Community Standards District and comprehensive Environmental Impact Review now in effect. The company has an air monitoring system in place, abides by rules that forbid drilling within 400 feet of residences, identifies and mitigates noise problems, and follows a plan for landscaping in and around its drilling site.
PXP prides itself on being the recipient of numerous awards for safety and environmental sensitivity. It is an active member of the community and is involved in year-round events like “Fishing in the City,” field trips and classroom visits. The company has initiated landscape improvements to visually improve the corridors around and through the drilling property.
PXP is one of the largest taxpayers in the region, paying Los Angeles County more than $10.4 million in 2010. It has more than 100 people on the local payroll, and contractors and consultants worked more than 450,000 hours in 2010.
Baldwin Hills CSD (Inglewood Oil Field)
No. This Is No Place for “Drill, Baby Drill”
Thousands of residents living in and around Baldwin Hills have their health put at risk by oil and gas drilling in their midst. The oil field is in the middle of one of the largest, most populous metropolitan areas in the country and, perhaps not coincidentally, the historic heart of the African American community in Los Angeles. Would this discussion even be happening in Beverly Hills?
Drilling of wells, processing of gas and fluids, storage of toxic substances, transportation of the produced substances via pipelines, injection of water and chemicals into the ground, and other production-related activities all take place right next to residential neighborhoods and parks. Baldwin Hills residents have twice the rate of chronic respiratory problems as the county in general. The morbidity/mortality rate of people living within 1.5 miles of Baldwin Hills is also higher.
When the Baldwin Hills Conservancy was created in 2000, oil production there had reached its nadir and the community had made a major commitment to cleaning up the mess left behind. The string of oil and gas companies that have operated in Baldwin Hills has played a role in a reservoir collapse, pollution, habitat degradation, releases of dangerous, noxious gases and other environmental hazards.
The companies have worked in opposition to community efforts to establish safe health standards and been anything but good neighbors. The attempt by an energy company to build a power plant right next to the Hahn recreation area in 2001, the year after the conservancy’s creation, perhaps attests to energy companies’ lack of sensitivity. An attempt to put a garbage dump there two years later attests to the City of Los Angeles’ tone deafness. It took two years, four lawsuits and heavy political pressure to wrangle a settlement out of PXP that still allows it to heavily drill the area for the next 20 years.
The Community Standards District and Environmental Impact Review put in place in 2011 were rushed through and considered inadequate by many involved in the process.
Baldwin Hills can be the Central Park of Los Angeles, in a city with one of the lower ratios of parks to people in the country. The area, with one acre of parkland per 1,000 residents, is currently one of the most park-poor areas in California.
Arguments that the oil wells were here first, and people moving into the area know what they are getting into ignore the fact that people have lived in Baldwin Hills continuously since Native Americans first settled there hundreds of years ago. Spaniards, Mexicans and early California settlers from the East built ranches there, grazing cattle and sheep since the 18th century.
Baldwin Hills Oil Fight - 'Drill, Baby, Drill' in L.A. (by Alex Walker, DailyKos)
Oil Drilling Plan Clears Key Hurdle (by Molly Hennesy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times)
Backyard Oil Drilling Affects Thousands in LA (Natural Resources Defense Council)
Keep Baldwin Hills Clean and Green for Generations to Come (The City Project) (pdf)
Pressure Results in Health Study for Baldwin Hills (by Leiloni de Gruy, Los Angeles Wave)
- Table of Contents
- Overview
- History
- What it Does
- Where Does the Money Go
- Controversies
- Suggested Reforms
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