Capping signals new life

Jenny Marder

Workers began to strip the south end of the Bolsa Chica of 56 oil

wells and rigs last week, kicking off what will be one of the largest

and most expensive wetlands restoration projects ever undertaken in

California.

Abandoning 39 active and 17 idle oil wells is the first step in a

multiyear undertaking to restore 880 acres of the Bolsa Chica

Wetlands into a thriving habitat for fish, birds and other wildlife.

Plans to restore the dry land into a lush habitat by cutting a tidal

inlet through the south end of Bolsa Chica State Beach have been some

20 years in the making.

“A band of citizens kept working, working, working and never lost

their focus,” said Shirley Dettloff, one of the founding members of

the Amigos de Bolsa Chica and a former mayor and coastal

commissioner.

It will take about 18 months to decommission all the wells, said

AERA Energy’s John Limousin, who is managing the abandonment project.

The abandonment process involves removing surface pumps and tubing

beneath the surface and plugging the mouth of the well with cement to

keep oil from escaping into soil or groundwater. Each well will take

anywhere from three days to a week to decommission, Limousin said.

AERA Energy operates three kinds of wells in the Bolsa Chica --

active producers, electrical submersible wells and injectors. The

wells, which have a producing life of 20 to 25 years, pull about 150

to 200 barrels a day. The first were drilled in 1951.

The oil company has been working closely with state and federal

agencies on the abandonment project.

“It’s been a real good effort with the California State Lands

Commission and [the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service],” Limousin said.

“It’s been a real collaborative effort.”

Abandonment of the wells will be followed by a thorough cleanup,

which Limousin doubts will be a large-scale operation, because of

stringent precautions that AERA Energy takes to prevent oil from

escaping into soil or groundwater.

“For us, a teaspoon of oil is as much as a larger quantity,”

Limousin said. “We take a lot of precautions to ensure that oil is

stripped down into a contained area.”

The total cost of the cleanup is $7.5 million -- $2.5 million of

which will be funded by AERA, $5 million which will be funded by the

state. The oil company will also be paid $4.6 million by the state to

compensate for lost revenue from early abandonment.

The restored marshland will include a 370-acre full tidal basin

connected to 180 acres of managed tidal area. Roughly 20 acres of new

nesting areas will benefit native birds such as snowy plovers and

least terns. A Pacific Coast Highway bridge will be built over the

inlet channel.

Construction workers hired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

will begin dredging work on the tidal basin in the fall of 2004.

Filling the basin is scheduled for fall 2005, and state officials

estimate that all construction will be complete by fall 2007.

“It’s very exciting,” Dettloff said. “I think that so many of us

were here from the very beginning, we may be a little numb right

now.”