How L.A.’s museum district is rebuilding.

Terra-Petra is proud to be part of the 5411 Wilshire, a planned $400 million apartment and retail complex at 5411 Wilshire Blvd. in the historical Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, led by Walter N. Marks Inc. (developer) and Keating Architecture.  A recent Los Angeles article covers the exciting and much needed changes along the famous Wilshire Blvd. supporting the immediate community and the 5411 Wilshire project.

L.A.’s museum district is rebuilding. But they’re ignoring pedestrians (again)

However, we are not certain  about how the changes will affect pedestrians in a negative way. In fact the changes we have taken part in will only benefit those who visit or frequent the Miracle Mile!

Mapping the long history of oil drilling in Los Angeles

Re-Post of original article on Curbed Los Angeles

Los Angeles has had always had a complicated relationship with oil. In 1892, what had been a small agricultural city popular with Midwestern tourists became a boomtown nearly overnight when oil was discovered in modern-day Echo Park.

From the beginning, the needs of the oil drillers collided with those of residents, visitors, and developers. The city we know today grew up alongside the oil industry and continues to be shaped by it—about 3,000 active wells remain in LA County, many of them in close proximity to residential neighborhoods, parks, and schools.

LA Curbed mapped a few of the places that show how the industry has embedded itself into the urban environment of Los Angeles.

Learn more about Terra-Petra’s Oil Field Services.

1. Echo Park Deep Pool

1419 Colton St
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(213) 481-2640

Visit Website

Here’s where it all began—yes, here. The current site of the Echo Park Deep Pool is where Edward Doheny and his partner Charles Canfield drilled the first oil well in Los Angeles in 1892, using a sharpened eucalyptus tree. According to lore, they found the site after Doheny spotted a slick black substance on the wheel of a passing cart. As casually as possible, he asked the driver to show him exactly where he had come from.

2. Discovery Well Park

2200 Temple Ave
Signal Hill, CA 90755
(562) 989-7330

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A plaque and adjoining park commemorate the first productive well drilled at Signal Hill. On June 23rd, 1921, a geyser of oil erupted from the Alamitos number one well, leading to an explosion of drilling in the Long Beach area. By 1923, Signal Hill was the state’s largest field, and California was producing a quarter of the world’s supply of oil. Per the plaque, the monument is a “tribute to the petroleum pioneers for their success here, a success which has, by aiding in the growth and expansion of the petroleum industry, contributed so much to the welfare of mankind.” We’ll take their word for it.

3. Pico Canyon Oil Field

Doheny may have set off the oil boom within the city of Los Angeles, but the first successful well in LA County was to the north, in the Santa Susana Mountains. A gusher at Charles Mentry’s Pico Well No. 4 on September 26, 1876, announced to the world that Southern California was rich in black gold. The nearby town of Newhall later became home to the state’s first refinery (pictured below).

4. Phillips 66 Oil Refinery

1660 W Anaheim St
Wilmington, CA 90744

The massive Wilmington Oil Field is the largest in California, having produced somewhere between 760 million and 1.2 trillion barrels of oil since it was first tapped in 1932. The Phillips 66 refinery in the southeast Los Angeles neighborhood paints one of its massive storage tanks orange  every October as a strange and festive Halloween tradition.

5. Andeavor Refinery

22600 S Wilmington Ave
Carson, CA 90745
(310) 816-8100

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Perhaps the most recognizable oil facility in the world, the Andeavor Refinery in Carson is adorned with an enormous American flag easily visible to drivers on the 405. Like Andeavor’s Wilmington refinery, this one dates back to the region’s oil boom of the 1920s and 1930s. Together, the two facilities now process a combined 380,000 barrels daily.

6. THUMS Islands

(562) 786-2385

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At the southeastern end of the Wilmington field is are the THUMS islands, constructed by the Texaco, Humble, Union, Mobil and Shell oil companies in 1965. As part of an agreement with the city of Long Beach, the oil companies invested considerable funds in disguising the drilling sites with boulders, palm trees, sculptures, and water falls—so much so that they are sometimes mistaken for luxury resorts.

7. Venice Beach

Venice Beach
Los Angeles, CA

Starting in the 1930s, Venice had a run as one of the leading oil producers in the state. During that time, derricks ran all along the canals and dotted the beach. Waterways became filled with oily sludge and the ocean was badly polluted. Production eventually dropped off in the 1970s and the last wells in the area were capped less than two decades later.

8. Inglewood Oil Field

College Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230

The enormous Inglewood Oil Field was first tapped in 1924 and has produced close to 400 million barrels of oil since then. Despite years of complaints from nearby residents, hundreds of wells continue to operate daily right alongside its neighbors in Baldwin Hills and Culver City.

9. False building

1351 S Genesee Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90019

From the outside this edifice looks like a particularly soul crushing office building with no windows. Inside, however, it’s not a building at all. The structure is simply a shell disguising the site of an oil derrick slurping away at the Beverly Hills Oil Field.

10. Beverly Hills High School

241 S Moreno Dr
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
(310) 229-3685

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One of the smaller major oil fields in the Los Angeles area, the Beverly Hills field is nonetheless productive, and the oil derrick on the campus of Beverly Hills High School was, until recently, churning out about 400 barrels of crude each day. The drilling site was ordered shut in 2016 and the complicated process of cleaning it up is scheduled to start this month.

11. Salt Lake Oil Field

6298 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 936-2864

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The Grove and Original Farmers Market today sit atop the Salt Lake Oil Field, discovered by dairy farmer Arthur Gilmore in the mid-1890s. Though the field was most productive in the early 20th Century, it was still being tapped in 1985, when drillers inadvertently caused methane gas to move below ground, rising up to the surface within the Ross store at Third Street and Fairfax Avenue. The resulting explosion injured 23 people.

12. Jefferson Drill Site

1375 W Jefferson Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90007

The subject of significant community opposition, this South LA drill site was forced last year to comply with city-imposed requirements that ensure its operators enclose the site and monitor vibrations and noxious fumes that neighbors say are caused by the drilling.

13. Del Amo Field

It might not look like it, but this quiet residential street in Torrance was the site of the first major strike in the Del Amo oil field. Throughout the 1920s, this was one of the most productive fields in the LA area with nearly 1,500 wells spread across more than 3,500 acres.

14. Huntington Beach

Offshore oil rigs are a familiar sight to Huntington Beach residents and visitors. On and off land, drillers have been tapping the city’s oil field since the 1920s. Recent research from the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that it may, in fact, have been oil drilling here that triggered the Long Beach Earthquake in 1933.

Read the original article on Curbed Los Angeles

2018 CALIFORNIA LAND RECYCLING CONFERENCE = Terra-Petra Brownfield Services

Terra-Petra to Sponsor of CA Brownfields Conference | Carson, California

2018 CALIFORNIA LAND RECYCLING CONFERENCE

Presented by Center for Creative Land Recycling, CA Department of Toxic Substances Control, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9

October 24th & 25th, 2018
at the Carson Event Center:   801 East Carson Street, Carson, California
CA Brownfield Conference

CCLR, DTSC and US EPA will present an intensive two-day redevelopment workshop geared towards the unique characteristics of redevelopment in California.

JUST ANNOUNCED!  DTSC will provide an overview of its upcoming Vapor Intrusion (VI) guidance updates at the California Land Recycling Conference.  Be part of the conversation as DTSC VI experts and authors/contributors discuss the guidance publicly for the first time to a brownfields-focused audience.

Learn more at:   https://www.cclr.org/california-land-recycling-conference-2018

Those attending this year may get in touch with us prior to the conference to arrange for a face-to-face meeting time.

Contact us via email here   or call the main Los Angeles office to speak with Justin Conaway:    213.458.0494.

Learn more about Terra-Petra’s Brownfield Services.

Terra-Petra Sponsors Bar Association of San Francisco Environmental Law Section Event

Terra-Petra was a proud sponsor of The Bar Association of San Francisco Environmental Law Section event, “Meet Your Environmental Regulators” on October 4, 2018.

The Annual Members Reception provided construction industry professionals with the opportunity to meet with representatives of many important environmental regulatory agencies, including:

California Department of Toxic Substances Control
California Coastal Commission
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
California Attorney General’s Office
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Bay Area County Local Oversight Programs
U. S. Department of Justice
Regional Water Quality Control Board
Native American Heritage Commission

http://static.ow.ly/docs/G182908-3_7YWy.pdf

 

Los Angeles was an oil town

Los Angeles Oil Drills Give Way to Skyline Views

(from Urbanize.LA)

One can also say that LA oil drills gave way to new skyline views as well as the birth of environmental engineering.

Long before becoming the epicenter for the film industry, Los Angeles was an oil town. Though few remnants remain today, a large oil field once cut a broad swath through the heart of Los Angeles, running from just south of present-day Dodger Stadium to Vermont Avenue in what is now Koreatown.  It began large-scale operations in the early 1890s, before peaking at the turn of the 20th century and falling into decline as development encroached into its territory over ensuing decades.

The photo (above) from the USC Digital Archive was taken near the intersection of Edgeware Road and Court Street in the first decade of the 1900s.  It depicts oil production in the Westlake area near the era’s peak.  Note the small home at 1274 Court Street at the terminus of Edgeware.  The after image below, taken in 2018 by Laurie Avocado, shows this same view in a modern context.  Gone are the abundance of oil drills, replaced by the skyscrapers of Downtown Los Angeles.  The lone remnant of the century-old image is that same house at 1274 Court Street.

Terra-Petra makes Top 20 once again in 2018 – on LA Business Journal’s Top Environmental Engineering and Consulting Firms List

Los Angeles Business Journal ranks Terra-Petra as the #18 Environmental Engineering and Consulting Firm in Los Angeles County for 2018.

Terra-Petra, one of the “newer firms” on the LABJ List, has been in the environmental engineering industry for just over 20 years, with many successful projects to lean on. The company started its operations focusing on the Los Angeles market to address the local “methane concerns” that quickly became a big issue. Its in-house experts were a big part of the team that developed the local Los Angeles Methane Code.

Terra-Petra’s expertise has always involved the ability to provide exceptional solutions for methane related issues, including soil gas investigations to determine level of risk. We are adept at recommending the right mitigation strategy and designing the right mitigation system to fit the client’s needs as well as providing the necessary inspections to ensure compliance and system integrity. Over the last ten years in particular, Terra-Petra has become to be recognized as the leading expert in methane and soil gas arena. As methane experts, we’ve also become experts at below grade waterproofing and drainage, having launched our sister-company Building Waterproofing Experts in 2010.

Terra-Petra’s Management Philosophy approach is simple, says President Kevin Buchanan,  “Make every client’s life easier.” The City of Los Angeles has written a very complex Methane Code. We have found that most of our clients, as well as the members of the design and construction teams, have no experience dealing with a property affected by this code–which impacts every aspect of the project. For this reason, we take the position of being a Methane Educator as well as Methane Problem Solver.

Terra-Petra is headquartered in Downtown Los Angeles and operates satelite offices in the cities of San Francisco, Tacoma, Denver, and New York City to serve clients throughout the nation and globally.

Los Angeles Business Journal rankings are based on number of employees in L.A. County among environmental engineering and consulting firms.

The Terra-Petra Leadership Spotlight

Daniel Valdez, Director of Field Operations for Terra-Petra.

As Terra-Petra’s Director of Field Operations, Dan Valdez oversees and coordinates all field inspections for both the Environmental and Waterproofing Divisions.

To date, Valdez has trained all of the inspectors at Terra-Petra and has been sent out-of-state on several occasions to consult and train agencies on how to conduct methane mitigation and waterproofing inspections.

With more than 12 consecutive years working for Terra-Petra, Valdez knows that the construction world is always changing and evolving.

As such, he believes in setting his inspectors up for success to adapt to any condition through comprehensive training and diligent preparation.

A registered Deputy Methane Barrier Inspector (DMBI) for the City of Los Angeles himself, Valdez holds certifications from multiple methane and waterproofing manufacturer’s and is trained to conduct inspections in various governing agencies throughout California.

He is also certified and trained to conduct inspections at various oil refineries and is trained for Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (Hazwoper).

Having completed the Dale Carnegie “Leadership Training for Managers” program, Daniel Valdez understands the importance of inspiring others to do great work.

Terra-Petra Sponsors Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite®

Terra-Petra’s Executive Team taking in the the beauty of Yosemite

The Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite®, presented and held annually by the State Bar of California, is nationally recognized as the largest and most prestigious gathering in California of leaders in environmental, land use, and natural resources law. Terra-Petra has been proud to sponsor the Yosemite conference for the last five years.

Many of the nation’s top environmental officials, lawyers, and other professionals in the spectacular setting of Yosemite, Thursday-Sunday, October 19-22, 2017  at Tenaya Lodge, Fish Camp, California (“The Gateway to Yosemite”).

As an organization of environmental professionals, this annual event strives to conserve natural resources and to support their sustainable use. Attendees were asked to reduce carbon footprints by forming carpools or driving in energy efficient vehicles upon traveling to Yosemite. In addition, attendees were asked to sign the State Bar Eco Pledge, and review the Model Law Office Sustainability Guidelines.

The 2017 Yosemite Conference Planning Committee Co-Chairs include:

  • Cara Horowitz, Los Angeles
  • Ryan Waterman, San Diego
  • Alisha Winterswyk, Irvine

Active Executive Committee Members on the Yosemite Planning Committee:

  • Eric Adair, Valencia
  • Rebecca Akroyd, Sacramento
  • Ellison Folk, San Francisco
  • Leah Goldberg, San Jose
  • Nicole Gordon, Los Angeles
  • Michael Leslie, Los Angeles
  • Christian Marsh, San Francisco
  • Osha Meserve, Sacramento
  • Jennifer Novak, Rolling Hills
  • Peter Nyquist, Los Angeles
  • Allison Smith, Sacramento
  • Julia Stein, Los Angeles
  • Chelsea Tu, San Francisco
  • Jon Welner, San Francisco

Additional and generous help from Environmental Law Section Advisors.

The State Bar of California is an approved MCLE Providers. 

 

vapor intrusion mitigation

Terra-Petra to attend topping off celebration for 2747 Park project in Palo Alto

The Level 10 team is set to celebrate the topping out of the the 2747 Park project on Thursday, October 5th. Designed by  the Jay Paul Company, this development is steps from Caltrain in Palo Alto, California. 2747 Park provides a future-forward workplace designed for Silicon Valley’s innovative workforce. Terra-Petra has been invited to attend the event having designed the vapor intrusion mitigation system for the site. Level 10 will also have the topping out beam available for signatures onsite beginning October 3rd.

Terra-Petra environmental engineering provides consulting to Pico Sullivan Architects on Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy Arts Center

Terra-Petra provides environmental consulting expertise to private school performing arts center

Re-Imagining the Past: The original 1956 Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy Auditorium was a multi-functional Cafa-Gym-atoriumWhile it provided much needed flexibility, hosting untold numbers of disparate functions, it did not adequately accommodate any one activity.  The time had come to recreate the venue to exclusively nurture and showcase the visual and performing arts. Terra-Petra was brought into this project to provide environmental engineering consulting expertise.

Designed by Pica +Sullivan Architects, Ltd., the newly renovated and reconfigured Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy Performing Arts Center and Mozilo Family Theater features an elegant pre-function lobby and art gallery, a proscenium theater with stadium seating, high tech production audio-visual system and theatrical lighting, stagecraft workshop and an art studio.

The extensive renovation entailed structural and seismic retrofit of the Spanish Colonial building, a broadening and lengthening of the stage and incorporation of accessory and support functions to service full scale performances for theater, dance and music.

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