Cries of outrage met a unanimous recommendation by the Long Beach Planning Commission in favor of a proposed land swap deal that would allow an oil company to drill new wells in the southeast part of the city in exchange for wetlands restoration.

“You people are death,” one person yelled after the vote.

The plan, as proposed, involves four pieces of land close to the intersection of Second Street and Studebaker Road near the marshy environment of the Los Cerritos Wetlands. On one hand, oil company representatives and others in favor of the plan have said the proposed project has potential to benefit the local environment by replacing decades-old equipment with new technology and moving oil wells away from the wetlands.

“It would see that land be restored in perpetuity,” said Mark Stanley, executive officer of the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority. The organization is a government agency that would become responsible for wetlands that are presently under oil company ownership if the plan is approved.

On the other hand, opponents charged during a public testimony period that lasted about an hour and a half that the proposal would be unsafe, given the oil field’s proximity to a fault zone, and disrespectful to the ancestors of indigenous peoples who lived on the land that became Long Beach. Multiple speakers referenced protests in line with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

“I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that putting a pipeline over a fault line is an idiotic idea,” one speaker said.

Maps for a proposed new pipeline included in environmental documentation show a crossing over the Newport-Inglewood Canyon fault zone. A document summarizing the result of environmental studies, however, found a pipeline can be engineered to operate safely after an earthquake and to shut down the flow of oil in case the pipeline ruptures.

The Planning Commission’s vote is far from a final decision. The plan still requires approval from the City Council, California Coastal Commission and multiple state and federal agencies.

Four pieces of land

The listed proponent of the proposal is a company called Beach Oil Minerals Partners, which is a subsidiary of oil field operator Synergy Oil & Gas. The plan requires changes to four sites.

The main Synergy Oil Field takes up some 150 acres northwest of the intersection of Second Street and Studebaker Road. If the plan is approved, the restoration work would allow water that can be found in the land’s northern area to flow toward the site of existing oil operations. The northern portion of the land would be transferred to Los Cerritos Wetland Authority and an existing office building that does stand over the fault zone would be moved and converted into a visitors center to facilitate public access. The 39 wells here would be eventually shut down.

Oil wells would also be decommissioned on a 33-acre site referred to the City Property, south of the oil field on the other side of Second Street. There are 11 active wells here, along with two that are not in use. This site is also where a pipeline would be built to connect the two other sites where Synergy wants to dig new wells.

The 7-acre Pumpkin Patch site takes its name from the seasonal pumpkin and Christmas tree operations that take place there. The land borders Pacific Coast Highway and the San Gabriel River, and Synergy wants to drill 50 new wells there. Synergy Chief Executive John McKeown said the firm already leases this land and has an option to buy it from Lyon Living, a Newport Beach company that develops and manages apartment buildings.

The fourth property is the LCWA Property, where the oil company wants to drill 70 new wells on a 5-acre piece of land. The firm also wants to build a natural gas-fueled power plant here that would be supplemented by energy generated from solar panels on the Pumpkin Patch site.

Neither the Pumpkin Patch nor LCWA sites are in the fault zone. Some wells would be used to reinject water that comes up with oil back into the ground in order to prevent subsidence.

“We never fracked here. We never intend to frack here,” Synergy Chief Executive John McKeown said in an interview.

The term “fracking” refers to the practice of using high-pressure water and other substances to break apart underground rock in order to access oil deposits. The practice has a long history within the oil and gas industry, but has become increasingly controversial during recent years amid concerns that it may lead to water contamination and increased seismic risks.

The project’s environmental documentation found that the only significant and unavoidable environmental consequence would likely be increased air pollution during construction. Although the summary of findings acknowledges that some earthquakes have been attributed to oil field operators’ practice of returning brackish groundwater to the earth, the environmental report listed no significant impacts associated with seismic risks, provided facilities are built to code and engineered to withstand any issues discovered through future geotechnical studies.

Egrets and oil wells

Wild animals such as egrets, halibut and coyotes can be found on the land or waters of the Synergy Oil Field site in its current condition. McKeown, said during a Thursday morning tour of the site that the relatively low oil prices of the past few years helped make the proposal possible by giving the company time to consider alternative proposals instead of having an immediate incentive to ramp up operations at the existing oil field.

New oil wells at the Pumpkin Patch and the LCWA sites would not require the use of old-style equipment like pump jacks, McKeown said. Pump jacks are the machines that resemble something like a giant metal chicken head pecking at the ground while drawing oil from the earth.

Prospective wells would be out of sight and placed within a cellar, McKeown said. Above ground tanks would be surrounded by walls and built on land graded to allow oil to flow toward the cellar in case any future disaster causes tanks and walls to rupture.

The proposal is written to require half of existing oil wells to be capped within 20 years, and all of them to be out of service in 40 years. Any well that produces less than a barrel’s worth of oil over an 18-month period would be capped.

Lenders financing construction of the new facilities—something that may cost upward of $200 million—would require Synergy be able to have a revenue stream from existing oil wells during the process, although it may be possible to shut down existing wells much sooner than required, McKeown said.

“I’d like to see us get off here in 10 years,” he said.