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RE: Hiding in Plain Sight: The Oil Wells of Los Angeles
Very well done! I worked for KBHome in the early 2000s. We built a 2500 unit subdivision in North OC, near the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. There were 24 capped wells on site, They brought in 24 feet of soil over the entire complex. There was a perpetual methane flame. I asked the superintendent "are there houses on top of the wells?" He said, "Nope, thats where we put the playgrounds!" It's called Olinda Ranch and is just north of Carbon Canyon Rd.
Wow, that's amazing. Thanks for giving us that story. I've heard about methane flames in the city before, but "that's where we put the playgrounds" is truly a classic line!
Here is the location. I guess they put in a museum... No way I would ever live there, the EIR and disclosures on each home sales contract was 400 pages long...
https://goo.gl/maps/k8eqiS7a4nR2
Now that's some fine print.
This is a great story dawg-boy. I drill oil. There was a site I was on outside of Dallas that was drilled out in the 1950's. The field had laid dormant for a few years but was being brought online as the population grew onto the field. (The closer the homes, the cheaper the pipeline costs).
We pulled into a home development around 4 pm on a Saturday. It had a shiny new model home, parents meeting each other, etc. They watched our trucks pull in like we were the plague. We hooked up hoses, churned generators (PTO's), and started circulating the well.
A woman walks over and asks/tells, "I thought these wells didn't work? That's what the model home lady told us?"
I was polite as I could be. But I had to tell her that we were turning the field on and that this was, in fact, and active field.