New Whittier Oil Exploitation Pollution Threatens Whittier College
Students
Matrix Oil Corp., based in Santa Barbara, looks set to extract oil on City of
Whittier land located approximately one mile upwind of the Whittier College
campus. Matrix Oil's Santa Barbara neighbor, non-profit Los Padres ForestWatch,
warns us of the consequences of profiting from oil extraction in California's
hills, even those some distance from human communities:
"Drilling requires a vast network of roads, pipelines, transmission wires,
and other infrastructure. While the footprint of this infrastructure may be
relatively small, the impacts spill across a much larger area. A single oil
derrick can ruin the views of an entire landscape, a narrow pipeline can bisect
an entire watershed, and air pollution can extend as much as 200 miles from
a drilling site." - 'Myths & Facts About the Los Padres Oil & Gas
Drilling Decision', prepared by Los Padres ForestWatch.
"Matrix is looking to expand the oil drilling about one mile north of campus
on Honolulu Terrace. A lone oil derrick exists on the hill flanked by storage
tanks across the street, but one day may become hundreds," writes Quaker
Campus' Neal Behrendt in the student paper's 4/10/08 issue.
"The Whittier Hills...host...wildlife, recreation, and housing. ...oil
derricks would damage all three by polluting and disrupting the area,"
observes Behrendt. "When the City purchased the 1,200 acres...they had
to remove hundreds of oil derricks."
According to Behrendt, The City of Whittier "is willing to sell 1,200 acres
for an expected revenue of $600,000 per year." This municipal income less
than that received annually by the Beverly Hills Unified School District and
the City of Beverly Hills for oil pumped out from under the Beverly Hills High
School campus, and adjacent area by slant drilling, and the Beverly Hills experience
is instructive...
There have been many lawsuits against Venoco Inc., the best-known involving
Erin Brockovich and Ed Masry, on behalf of former BHHS students who blame their
early cancers on pollution from Venoco's Beverly Hills oil and gas operation.
While cancer-stricken former students have failed to prevail in their lawsuits,
the South Coast Air Quality Management District has fined Venoco Inc., after
issuing three notices of violations by the company, and the AQMD has ordered
complete cessation of oilfield gases venting, and continuous monitoring, to
be paid for by Venoco, of the air affected by any such release. In 2007, Joy
Horowitz's book on Beverly Hills oil and lawsuits, Parts Per Million: The Poisoning
of Beverly Hills High School, was published.
The Mayor of Whittier, Owen Newcomer, is also a faculty member at Whittier College,
and he has greater political ambitions. If Mayor Newcomer doesn't have the leadership
abilities to put a stop to this new oil deal, to protect his students and constituents,
then he should abandon his then overambitious political plans. And let's not
forget for a moment who calls the shots in Whittier... If Whittier College wants
this oil deal stopped, it'll be stopped; and, if the deal goes through, then
it's with Whittier College's blessing.
And remember, too, that it was local oil money that underwrote Dick Nixon's
political ambitions from their beginning to beyond the (local oilmen's Nixon
slush) Fund or Checkers Speech; it seems, sadly, safe enough to put your wager
on Whittier endangering student and all community members' health for some money,
which will likely end up paying for only part of the consequent lawsuits against
the City of Whittier and Matrix Oil.
The heirs apparent of Whittier, the city's Latino majority, unable so far to
put a single Latino on the lily white Whittier City Council, are going to find
there's nothing more left to them than was left to African-Americans inheriting
so many U. S. urban cores. Whittier College's strategy? Finding new suckers
in mainland China?
'Toxic School?' A CBS Special Assignment Investigation (Scroll down past 3 captioned
photos to CBS report): http://www.rajuabju.com/pasthomepagefeatures10.htm
Photo of Beverly Hills High School campus oil derrick, ironically beautified
by young cancer patients:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-04-28-bevhills-usat_x.htm
'Crude Awakening Arises at Burning Man' by Lane Hartwell. August 29, 2007. Bigger
than life performance art: http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/08/crude-awakening.html
'Myths & Facts About The Los Padres Oil & Gas Drilling Decision' prepared
by Los Padres ForestWatch based in Santa Barbara: http://www.lpfw.org/docs/Oil/OilMyths&Facts.pdf