Montebello Hills Oil Spill

Howdy friends and neighbors of the hills!

 Intersection of San Gabriel Blvd. and Lincoln Ave., Montebello, CA.

The white light in the center of the photo is where clean up workers were seen.

(All photos courtesy of a Montebello resident- used by permission.)

Once again PXP has befouled our beloved Montebello hills.  The story broke late last night when a reporter from Eastern Group Publishing (EGP) was asked by concerned citizens of Montebello to check out what was happening near the intersection of San Gabriel Blvd. and Lincoln Ave.

The EGP story, Montebello Oil Spill Clean Up In Progress by Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou, EGP Staff Writer, was posted early this Saturday morning.

Ironically, Friday was "Earth Day."

According to the EGP story, "A crew began cleaning up an oil spill in Montebello sometime earlier this week, and will continue cleanup into this weekend."

Spills of hazardous materials, including crude oil, are reported to the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal-EMA) and these reports are available for public view.

Hazardous Material Spill Reports 
[Use the search function and enter: "Montebello",  then select option: "last modified."  The Cal-EMA report number for this spill is 11-2486]

The Haz Mat Report for this latest spill is dated April 19, 2011 and states 10 barrels (1 barrel equals 42 US gallons) of "produced water" and 40 gallons of crude oil were spilled.  This may not sound like much but keep in mind folks, the spill was reported last Tuesday and the clean up crews were still out there on Friday night!

The report goes on to say that the cause of the spill was a "broken pipe" or in the words of the person reporting the spill, "a gasket failed on a flange on a flow line."

What gets me so riled up is that it isn't the first oil spill in this exact location.  If you read through all of the Haz Mat reports for Montebello you'll notice other spills have happened near the intersection of San Gabriel Blvd and Lincoln Ave.

It's mighty curious that this northeast section of the Montebello hills just happens to be the place where PXP's real estate subsidiary, Cook Hill Properties, wants to put their restricted-access, "gnatcatcher reserve" as part of their proposed housing development plan.

Hhhhmmmmm . . .  

NRC Environmental Services Truck

24 hour emergency response

1-800-33-Spill

The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) has a pdf. on what to do in case of a hazardous materials spill or release:

OES Hazardous Materials Unit
California Hazardous Material Spill/Release Notification Guidance

Traffic cones and row of clean up trucks along

San Gabriel Blvd looking west.  The Montebello hills oil field is on the left.

 North side of San Gabriel Blvd just past the Bosque de Rio Hondo looking west.  White light on the right hand side of the photo indicates area where clean up workers were seen near the riverbed.

Residents passing through this area say you can smell the crude oil in the air so if any of y'all have allergies or asthma you may want to consider an alternate route.

Daisy Mae


P.S. I would like to send out a "thank you kindly" to Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou and EGP News for posting a link back to this blog!  I sure do appreciate it!


New blog entries on this story: 


April 24, 2011
More photos of the PXP oil spill

April 26, 2011
Thar's oil in them thar hills . . . and in the pond . . . and maybe the river!


April 30, 2011
Montebello hills oil spill investigation

May 5, 2011
PXP in the DOGGR House