Over the last year [2014-2015] we’ve all seen oil prices plunge and — thank goodness–gas prices plummet, too. Now gas prices, at least here in Los Angeles, are shooting back up. So during a visit to a friend in Long Beach I took some photos of the oil fields which surround the city including right in the harbor. All the wells are still pumping like crazy. The current leap upward in gas prices is being blamed, in part, on an explosion at a refinery in Torrance. I don’t believe it; that refinery was already closed for repairs.
In the Long Beach harbor are 4 man-made oil islands, disguised with palm trees and simulated buildings. The oil is pumped out and through pipelines under neighborhoods like Belmont Heights and Bluff Park to huge storage tanks further north. There is an earthquake fault running through Belmont Heights which is scary, but most residents either do not know about it or simply ignore it. Earthquakes happen.
On one of the islands farther away from the beach, the fake building has come down and an oil derrick is exposed. Further west of the oil islands are wells on land near a couple of major shopping centers. And there are a bunch more on Signal Hill, which is actually an oil dome.
But the beach and harbor are not all oil, oil, oil. There is a terrific cycling route running along the 7 miles of beach in the city. It extends beyond the beach up the Los Angeles river for quite a ways.
In Belmont Shore on Second Street is one of my favorite bakeries in all of greater L.A. Stop at Babette’s Feast for the very best French pastries. [Sadly, Babette’s Feast has closed.]
And in Bluff Park at Ocean and Paloma, overlooking those oil islands, is a larger-than-life statue of a World War II sailor looking boldly westward across the Pacific.
