The Council sought to achieve two primary goals to benefit Whittier residents:

• Provide for the long-term fiscal stability for the City to provide needed public services to residents and;
• Facilitate the long-term preservation and enhancement of the Preserve’s ecological resources and native habitat.
   

The City Council’s project approval requires the oil company to provide nearly $100 million to be paid over the life of the project for mitigation in the Preserve. This includes removal of invasive plant species, revegetation with appropriate native plant materials to enhance habitat, study for the potential installation of a crossing beneath Colima Road for wildlife, etc.

Also, significant changes have occurred in oil production technology since the 1990s. New methods of drilling and pumping are much less invasive to the surface and environment. Rather than individual oil pumps scattered across the hills, oil can now be produced through a single small site (1%-2% of the entire site) where directionally-drilled wells can be clustered within an underground vault, thereby leaving the vast bulk of the habitat preserve untouched.

The oil project’s CUP approval and Final EIR require the following habitat mitigation and enhancement:

• Revegetation of approximately 25 acres with native seed material around the west end of the Colima tunnel to provide better cover and attract more animals to use the tunnel. (EIR Mit. Measure BIO-4h and CUP COA #23)
• Establishment of a Land Acquisition/Revegetation fund in the amount of one percent (1%) of gross proceeds, up to $15.0 million. These funds are to be used for acquisition of additional open space land however, if purchase of such lands cannot be accomplished within 10 years of establishment of the fund, the funds could be used to revegetate disturbed property to improve habitat to afford more and better foraging opportunities for wildlife. (CUP COA #80)
• Preparation of a study to determine the feasibility of an additional underpass or overpass north of the existing underpass on Colima Road and to decide which is most advantageous to animal survival while crossing Colima Road. If an additional wildlife crossing is recommended, Matrix Oil will bear all costs of the design and engineering, environmental review and mitigation (if required) and construction costs of the wildlife passageway/crossing. Matrix is required to advance the funds necessary to build any additional wildlife crossing, but the full amount of the costs advanced will constitute a credit against the Land Acquisition/Revegetation Fund established (pursuant to COA 80). (CUP COA #81)
• Creation of an exotic eradication/habitat enhancement program within designated priority areas within the Preserve and Project site – including annual contributions of $30,000 per year (with annual CPI increases). (CUP COA #70.2)
• A Conservation Easement on the City-owned Preserve Land, except for the surface areas approved for use in the Project. (CUP COA #74)
• Funding for preparation of a multi-year, scientific study to evaluate the wildlife movement patterns of bobcats and other wildlife species utilizing the Preserve. (EIR Mit. Measure Cumulative BIO-1c)
• To mitigate the Project's loss of coastal sage scrub (4.84 acres) and loss of habitat value due to the Project’s noise impacts affecting 5.49 acres of coastal sage scrub, the project will restore 19.99 acres of degraded habitats in the La Cañada Verde and Arroyo Pescadero watersheds to coastal sage scrub communities. (EIR Mit. Measure BIO-1a)
• The project will restore 22.5 acres of degraded habitats in the La Cañada Verde and Arroyo Pescadero watersheds to native communities, as agreed to by the appropriate resource agencies and the City. (EIR Mit. Measure BIO-1b)
• To mitigate the Project's permanent loss of 0.22 acre of riparian habitat, the Applicant will provide a minimum 3:1 areal replacement. To mitigate the Project’s noise impacts affecting 0.75 acres of riparian habitat, Matrix will provide a minimum 1:1 areal replacement. In total, 1.41 acres of degraded areas will be restored within the La Cañada Verde and Arroyo Pescadero watersheds (or as otherwise agreed to by the appropriate resource agencies and the City). The 0.12 acre of temporary grading impact would be mitigated through the 1:1 revegetation as specified in BIO-1.b. (EIR Mit. Measure BIO-2a)
• A worker carpooling program will be instituted offsite and away from congested areas to reduce Project traffic through congested areas during all Project phases. (EIR Mit. Measure T-1b)
• The project will construct and maintain interpretative signage within the Preserve’s trails to provide an educational component about the Preserve, drilling activities, mitigation, descriptions of local wildlife, habitats, environmental values of the Puente Hills area, historic uses, etc. (EIR Mit. Measure REC-1)
• High volume, high pressure hydraulic fracturing is prohibited. (CUP COA #77)
• Corrugated pipe culverts will be installed under roads with significant increase in use within leased area to facilitate movement of vertebrates including rodents, reptiles, and amphibians. (CUP COA #70.4)
• Use of the North Access Road is prohibited ½ hour before sunset to ½ hour after sunrise. (CUP COA #21)
• To mitigate for noise impacts associated with truck traffic on the North Access Road, a minimum 1:1 areal replacement of native habitat affected by 60 dBA or above averaged hourly (1.1 acres) will be provided by the Applicant. (CUP COA #85)

The drill site would be located north of the terminus of Catalina Avenue. As proposed, the fully developed project consists of a single pad with wells, and an oil processing plant, a gas plant, and an oil-truck loading facility all located on an approximately 6.9 acre site (Project Site) within the 1,290-acre City-owned Whittier Main Oil Field. A crude oil sales pipeline and a natural gas sales pipeline would be installed underneath existing Preserve roads (the Loop Trail Road) between the Project Site and Colima Road. The crude oil and gas pipelines would continue south under Colima Road to transport crude oil and natural gas to markets.

The Project Site would contain the oil and gas drilling and processing facilities on a single pad including a well area, a gas plant area and an oil plant area. The Project Site would consist of well cellars, well test stations, liquid and gas separating equipment, a truck loading facility, an oil processing facility, and a gas plant. The total permanent area required for the pad would be approximately 6.9 acres with an additional 8.2 acres of roadways (6.5 for project roadways and 1.7 acres for the secondary fire access along the Loop Trail Road), most of which are currently present. The County of Los Angeles Fire Department (LACoFD) may require a fuel modification zone (FMZ). An FMZ is a strip of land is where combustible native or ornamental vegetation is modified or partially or totally replaced with drought-tolerant, low-fuel volume plants to reduce fire risk around the facility. The Fire Department has stated that it would require FMZ of 20 feet for facility pads, 10 feet for roads and 100 feet for the office building. The FMZ would encompass an additional 6.9 acres along roadways and around the pads. Up to 8.5 additional acres may be temporarily disturbed for construction and grading the site including areas disturbed for parking and staging of construction equipment. These 8.5 acres would be re-vegetated after construction is completed. The total impacted area associated with pads, roads, FMZ, and construction-related temporarily disturbed areas would be 30.6 acres.

Roads, pipelines, and utility poles would be constructed. Electrical and pipeline interconnections would be made to the Southern California Edison (SCE) grid and the City of Whittier Sewer and Water District systems. After initial testing, access to the Project would be from both Catalina Avenue and Penn Street through the Savage Canyon Landfill property and through the Preserve to the Project Site (North Access Road). Vehicles with two axles and weighing less than 3 tons, and vehicles weighing less than 3 tons with two axles towing a single-axle trailer, would access the Project Site through Catalina Avenue (generally, automobiles and pickups).

Vehicles with more than two axles or weighing more than 3 tons (generally trucks), or vehicles towing larger trailers, would access the Project Site via the Penn Street entrance and the North Access Road. Oil and gas would be transported by truck during the Drilling and Testing Phase and by pipeline during the normal Operations and Maintenance Phase.

During the testing phase and the construction phase, the oil company proposes to transport crude oil in tanker trucks (10,000-gallon capacity) through Catalina Avenue until the North Access Road is completed and then through the North Access Road until the permanent sales oil pipeline is constructed.

During operations, the oil company proposed two methods for transporting the marketable crude oil. One method would be via the Truck Loading Facility inside the Project Site area, where the oil would be loaded onto oil tanker trucks and transported via the North Access Road to a nearby receiving terminal and then transferred into the Crimson California Pipeline System. Oil would be transported by this method during rare periods when the pipeline system is shut down.

The second oil transportation method would transfer the marketable crude oil by pipeline from the Project Site to the existing Crimson Pipeline System via a new 2.8-mile pipeline connection to a tie-in at Leffingwell Road and La Mirada Boulevard. The Crimson Pipeline System would transport the crude to the ConocoPhillips Refinery in Wilmington. This would be the primary transport method, while the tanker truck method would be used during the oil pipeline construction and as a back-up if the pipeline is temporarily shut down.

The proposed Project would involve three distinct development phases. The first phase, the Drilling and Testing Phase, would involve drilling up to three test wells at the Project Site and assessing the quality and quantity of oil and gas produced. Assuming successful testing, the second phase, the Design and Construction Phase, would involve construction of well cellars, installation of gas and oil processing equipment, and gas/crude transportation facilities. The third phase, the Operations and Maintenance Phase, would involve drilling the remaining wells (for a total of up to 60 wells; three test wells drilled during the test phase and the remaining 57 wells drilled during the Operations and Maintenance phase), as well as the operation and maintenance of the gas and oil facilities and the wells, which would include well workovers  and occasional well re-drilling.

The project will have a limited visual impact on the hills. Wells are to be clustered in a small portion of the site and the pumps will be located in a vault below ground surface. From most vantage points in the community the facility will not be visible. However portions of the drill rig (during well drilling and maintenance) will be visible, along with storage tanks. Below is a photo simulation of the proposed project site as viewed from the Arroyo Pescadero overlook near Colima Road. No oil wells or pumps would be visible from surrounding properties.

The Court of Appeal decision resulted in several important conclusions for the City:

• The Conditional Use Permit and Final EIR are valid;
• Reversed the Superior Court’s ruling that invalidated the settlement agreement between the City and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) – which was the basis for PAPA receiving a settlement. Thus the judgment in favor of PAPA has been eliminated;
• The lease with Matrix Oil remains invalid which means that a new lease would need to be approved;
• Allows Whittier to use potential oil proceeds “for the acquisition, development, improvement, rehabilitation or restoration of real property for parks and park safety, senior recreation facilities, beaches, recreation, wildlife habitat or natural lands”.