Homeowners Protest Pipeline Plan

About 50 homeowners attending a public forum Tuesday night in Burbank said they would oppose any attempts to lay a proposed 130-mile crude-oil pipeline through their neighborhoods.

Before the meeting at George Washington Elementary School began, about 12 of the residents picketed in front of the school with signs reading, “Kill the Pipeline Before It Kills Us” and “Remember Granada Hills.”

The latter sign referred to an April 7 rupture of a Mobil Oil Co. pipeline in Granada Hills that caused two automobile accidents and polluted a 22-mile stretch of Los Angeles waterways.

Some attending the forum said they were concerned that the proposed Angeles Pipeline, a venture by four oil companies that would pump 330,000 barrels of crude daily through a 30-inch pipeline from San Joaquin Valley and Santa Barbara oil fields to South Bay refineries, would pose pollution problems in event of a rupture.

They were also disturbed at the prospect of having their streets torn up while the underground pipeline is being installed.

“Why should our city streets that we pay for with tax dollars be used for the profit of private corporations?” one woman asked.

Maurice Scherb, a West Los Angeles resident opposed to the project, suggested that oil companies tap offshore fields in Southern California rather than run crude from Northern California through the city.

“If they find oil here, what do they need the Santa Barbara stuff for?” Scherb said. “This is what they have to consider in long-range planning.”

T. W. Shettler, environmental and permit manager for the consortium, told residents it would not be feasible to run pipelines along the coast or through the deserts east of Los Angeles to get to the South Bay refineries.

In choosing routes for the proposed pipeline, he said, engineers for the consortium selected wide streets with as few homes as possible.

Shettler said it will be at least a year before a final route is selected.

Most of the people at the forum were from the Echo Park, Los Feliz and Silver Lake areas of Los Angeles, although an alternative route for the pipeline could take it along Balboa Boulevard through the San Fernando Valley.

One of two routes proposed by the consortium would run the pipeline south along Foothill, Glenoaks and Los Feliz boulevards to Western Avenue, Hawthorne Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue in the South Bay. Proponents have modified that route to avoid Griffith Park and residential areas in Los Feliz.

An alternative westerly route under consideration, however, would run a section of the pipeline along Balboa and Sepulveda boulevards in the San Fernando Valley.