Helms Design Center
8745 Washington Boulevard | Doors Open at 7:45 for breakfast and mingling prior to the discussion.

On Thursday, July 28th, from 8:30 to 9:30 AM, please join Westside Urban Forum for a member networking and panel discussion that considers how Greater Los Angeles will transition away from fossil fuel extraction and how these brownfields may be reclaimed for regenerative new land uses.

Oil was first discovered in Los Angeles in 1892, and by the 1920s helped propel California to become the leading oil producer in the United States, accounting for one-quarter of the world’s petroleum output. Alongside real estate, aerospace, and film, the petroleum industry enabled the rapid growth and development of our region. To this day, visitors to Los Angeles International Airport are greeted by the pumpjacks of the Baldwin Hills Oil Field, with many others hidden behind illusory facades.

Oil and gas is no longer the regional economic megalith it once was, but it has straddled Los Angeles with a harmful and unintended consequence: the nation’s largest urban oil field. There are 68 active oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin, and more than 20,000 active, idle, or abandoned oil wells scattered throughout our densely populated urban fabric, many of them within close proximity of homes, schools, parks, and other sensitive land uses. They pose acute risks to human and environmental health via air pollution as well as water and soil contamination, and they disproportionately impact historically Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

After ten years of community organizing and advocacy by environmental justice groups, including the STAND-L.A. coalition, the City of Los Angeles and County of Los Angeles have committed to phasing out urban oil wells. While it is relatively easy to prevent new wells through land use action, how to close, cap, and remediate the existing and abandoned wells – and how such efforts will be paid for – is a more complicated affair. Additionally, there is the consideration of the jobs that will be displaced and what opportunities exist in a “Just Transition” to a clean energy economy.

Confirmed Panelists:

Alison Hahm, Staff Attorney, Communities for a Better Environment

David McNeill, Executive Officer, Baldwin Hills Conservancy

Laura Muraida, Senior Deputy for Environmental Justice, Office of Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell

Nicole Levin, Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign Representative, Sierra Club

Sean Hecht (Moderator), Co-Executive Director, UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment

Registration Fees
$50 Members
$65 Non-Members
$10 Student Members
$15 Student Non-Members

Pre-registration closes on Tuesday, July 26th, at 9:00 PM. After Tuesday, July 26th, onsite registration will be available at the cost of an additional $10. No refunds or credits will be provided after this day.

Photo Credit – Baldwin Hills Oil Field (Source: The Center for Land Use Interpretation, licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Creative Commons License)