The Brief

One of Los Angeles’ most polluted stretches of land soon will be cleared for new development, and a full accounting of the ground’s degradation will be left largely to an oil company.

For almost 40 years in the middle of the 20th century, workers at an oil refinery with connected facilities in Wilmington and Carson buried truckloads of slop oil and acid sludge directly on site. Decades later, much of that waste still is in the soil and water table, state records show.

Phillips 66, which now owns the century-old refinery, will idle the plants by the end of the year. In some areas, the contaminated underground layer is more than 16 feet thick. Yet the only estimates for how much it will cost to tear down the refinery and clean up the fouled land is from Phillips 66, which blamed “market dynamics” for its closing.

“It is a huge problem that there is currently no disclosure requirement concerning the actual cost,” said Ann Alexander, an environmental policy consultant and principal at Devonshire Strategies. So much waste has accumulated under and around the refinery, it has formed a subterranean “lake of hydrocarbons,” she added. It could take decades to address.

Some community advocates fear Phillips 66, whose refinery produces up to 139,000 barrels of oil products a day, will offload the financial and health burdens onto the public. The company declined to answer questions, but a spokesperson said it is developing plans to continue removing polluted soil.

“We are in the preliminary planning stages for this work and cannot speculate on a definitive timeline or estimated cost of the decommissioning and remediation,” spokesperson Al Ortiz wrote in an email.

It’s rare for major oil refineries to close, but it may become more common as state and local governments increasingly turn to renewable energy — as California plans to do by subsidizing electric vehicles.

An aerial view of the southeastern side of the Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington.

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The U.S. Energy Information Agency predicts a small increase in gasoline prices due to the Phillips 66 refinery closure and of a Valero-owned refinery in the Bay Area city of Benicia next year. California officials are holding out hope that other companies will buy one or both of the refineries and keep them in operation, as lawmakers are considering whether to streamline permit approvals for refineries.

In the meantime, years of groundwater testing by regulators reveal a toxic legacy. Among the pollutants in the groundwater under the Carson and Wilmington facilities, overseen by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, are lead from buried waste and dangerous levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from foam used to fight fires at the refinery.

The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington receives refined oil from the Carson plant to make gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

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None degrade naturally and likely will have to be contained underground, said Danny Reible, a professor of environmental engineering at Texas Tech University who has advised governments on such cleanups. It is “effectively impossible to remove 100%” of such pollution, Reible said.

Some contaminants have leached into aquifers that are a source of drinking water. Since 2023, more than five different samplings by Phillips 66 found elevated levels of tert-butyl alcohol, a gasoline additive, in a groundwater monitoring well in a neighborhood about a half-mile from the Wilmington site.

The well, which is not used for drinking water but touches an aquifer that is connected to drinking water wells in South L.A., has been tested since 2008 after regulators suspected pollution had migrated there. Phillips 66 said the tert-butyl alcohol findings are not attributable to the refinery, and the Los Angeles water board said it did not test drinking water wells for the pollutant because they are all more than a mile from the refinery.

As for the Carson site, two reports from 2005, one by the U.S. EPA and another by the local water board, noted its contamination of the Silverado aquifer could affect nearby drinking water wells. Sampling last year found tert-butyl alcohol in a groundwater monitoring well located at the refinery.

The polluted water is being pumped and transported to disposal sites and recycling facilities, said the Phillips 66 spokesperson. The Los Angeles water board said it has overseen the removal of 2.8 million gallons of light non-aqueous phase liquid (a layer of petroleum contamination that floats on top of water) and 317 million gallons of “impacted groundwater” — the size of 480 Olympic pools. What’s known as a biosprage system also injects pressurized air into the contaminated layer to break down some pollutants.

In the soil above the groundwater, there is a plume containing volatile organic compounds, such as benzene — a known carcinogen — and other gasoline chemicals like diisopropyl ether and methyl-tert-butyl ether, according to testing done last year. Their noxious vapors travel upwards and can seep into buildings.

Phillips 66 said it “engaged” Catellus Development Corporation and Deca Companies to evaluate the 650-acre refinery complex — the size of about 500 football fields. Neither responded to requests for interviews.

The job of regulators after the refinery closes is limited and at times unclear.

The water board will continue testing groundwater but has “no role” in the closure, spokesperson Jackie Carpenter said. It could impose fines on Phillips 66, something it has not done recently.

The Department of Toxic Substances Control told Capital & Main that it only oversees waste removed from an asphalt-capped pond at the Carson plant and a concrete-lined stormwater holding basin at the Wilmington site. Any future waste it deems hazardous also would have to be reported for tracking.

The Phillips 66 refinery facility in Carson begins the process of refining crude oil into petroleum products.

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A request for comment sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office went unanswered.

Julia Giarmoleo, a spokesperson for the U.S. EPA, said states are authorized to manage solid waste and groundwater contamination. (In 2019 the EPA rejected superfund financial responsibility requirements for oil refineries.)

A lack of coordination worries environmental justice organizations, which are pressing the state of California to establish a refinery wind-down process.

It’s been a “chaotic” process, said Sylvia Arredondo, civic engagement director at Communities for a Better Environment. Instead, the state should be taking an active lead to “do it as a gradual shift.”

The costs also are uncertain.

In filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Phillips 66 said “asbestos abatement” and “decommissioning of assets” at its Los Angeles refinery would cost $231 million.

But decommissioning and cleaning “are two different processes with wildly different price tags,” said Faraz Rizvi, policy and campaign manager for Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which is holding a town hall meeting to gather input from nearby residents.

Refinery owners’ disclosure of those costs is mostly unregulated, and they’re allowed to presume refineries have no retirement date. That’s different from other industries with more certain retirement dates, such as nuclear, where plant owners must maintain a fund to close generating stations.

Six of the largest oil refining companies in the U.S., including Phillips 66, have actual closure costs estimated at $34 billion combined, but their own estimates total less than $1 billion, according to a report by London-based think tank Carbon Tracker, which based calculations on daily output capacity.

Taxpayers could end up covering shortfalls, said Eric Stevenson, a former director of meteorology, measurement and rules at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. “It’s the Wild West right now,” Stevenson said.

Phillips 66 reported a $908 million loss on its Los Angeles refinery in 2024. Its leadership saw a shakeup after the hedge fund led by billionaire Paul Singer bought a $2.5 billion stake in the company and pushed for a focus on other assets, including a petroleum export hub near Houston.

Mass layoffs have followed Singer’s involvement at other companies, such as a petroleum refinery in Contra Costa County owned by Marathon Petroleum. About 600 employees and 300 contractors work at the Los Angeles refinery.

Phillips 66 will retain a presence in Los Angeles. In addition to importing gasoline from its Washington state refinery, it faces federal charges for dumping 790,000 gallons of oil-laden wastewater into county sewers in 2020 and 2021. A criminal trial is scheduled for next year.

Standing outside the Wilmington refinery on a recent morning, longtime resident Anita Gomez urged a group of staff members for state lawmakers not to let the company skirt its obligations. 

She said action is needed to prevent repeating what has happened at other shuttered industrial facilities in the area, including a battery recycling plant in Vernon, where industries have walked away and left the cleanup of their pollution to taxpayers.

“They simply close and don’t clean up,” Gomez said.

Along busy streets in Long Beach’s Washington neighborhood, longtime resident Jesus Esparza says locals will consider just about anything to keep themselves safe from speeding drivers.

The latest idea: leaving reflective vests on the worst street corners so pedestrians can don them while crossing and leave them for the next passerby.

It’s a grassroots tactic that illustrates their frustration with Long Beach’s increasingly deadly streets. In 2025, the city recorded 53 fatal traffic collisions, a sharp increase from 2024 and the most in more than 10 years.

Long Beach has been striving for years to make its roads safer. In 2016, the City Council said it hoped to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2026. It was their version of a Vision Zero plan that many municipalities have adopted.

But in the ensuing decade, Esparza, who leads the local neighborhood association, says he’s seen little progress. He’s regularly passed along residents’ requests for traffic-calming measures — things like adding more lighting or delaying green lights so pedestrians get a head start in a crosswalk. But, he said, he’s yet to see any effective measures installed.

“We would always ask for speed bumps or speed tables,” Esparza said in Spanish, “but they don’t put them [on our streets.]”

Despite a rise in deadly crashes, a spokesperson for Long Beach’s Public Works Department, which manages streets, said the city is still confident in its strategy.

Its “core principles” include protecting pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists by slowing down drivers, Public Works spokesperson Jocelin Padilla wrote in an email. Those plans “remain unchanged.”

She said speeding is a primary factor in the city’s most serious crashes. Bad driver behavior, such as impairment and distraction, is also to blame.

Their greatest toll has been on people outside of cars. Last year, 32 people were killed while walking, biking or riding an e-scooter. That eclipses the number of people murdered here last year: 29.

Other residents have also pressed for faster action.

On another dangerous section of roadway along Orange Avenue, resident Kelsey Wise said she’s seen countless near misses. In response, she spent hours putting together a PowerPoint presentation to convince the city to install speed humps on Orange Avenue between Seventh Street and Hellman Avenue.

Wise estimated that roughly half of the drivers on her street travel above the posted 25 mph speed limit — a habit she finds increasingly troubling when teenagers from the nearby school zip through her neighborhood on electric scooters and e-bikes.

Last month, Wise presented the information to Councilmember Mary Zendejas’ office, who told her they would refer the presentation to Public Works. She’s yet to hear anything back.

“I think the system right now is designed to respond once something catastrophic happens, not when residents are signaling that something catastrophic is likely to happen,” Wise said.

Public Works told the Long Beach Post that seemingly simple fixes like the speed bumps Esparza and Wise asked for aren’t feasible. Its engineers prefer other “traffic calming treatments.” Speed humps slow down emergency response vehicles and the department has received “objections to noise” caused by drivers hitting them, Padilla wrote in an email.

Padilla said they instead favor “bulb outs” that extend curbs into the street at a crosswalk and “diverters” — islands that separate bicyclists from regular traffic and prevent cars from turning into neighborhoods or where it’s unsafe.

Over the past few years, the city has “made meaningful investments” to redesign major corridors with those principles in mind, Padilla wrote. Last May, Long Beach celebrated the completion of a $44.2 million project that installed protected bike lanes, new crosswalks and other traffic safety features on Artesia Boulevard.

On Tuesday, the City Council voted to approve reducing speed limits on dozens of streets.

Kurt Canfield, an organizer with local street safety group Car-Lite LB, said he was skeptical that speed limit reductions would slow down drivers unless it ramps up enforcement. Cops have been writing fewer speeding tickets since the pandemic.

The city has pivoted to relying on automated enforcement. Officials plan to install speed cameras at 18 locations throughout the city, but they’re not scheduled to be installed until the summer. They’ll then start issuing warnings to drivers until fines begin in the fall.

Canfield said he hopes last year’s high death toll will be an outlier.

“I think people are wanting to get back out and bike and walk, but as more people start doing that, now we have what essentially amounts to more targets to be victimized,” Canfield said.

The high death toll, he said, doesn’t mean the city’s approach is wrong, Canfield said.

“It just means that we need to try more, we need to continue building safer streets and changing behaviors because it does work,” he said.

It was short lived, but the wintry spell that graced Southern California is leaving the area. We're in for dry, sunnier weather this weekend and warmer weather early next week.

Today's highs will again be mostly in the mid-60s along the coast, topping out around 67 degrees in the valleys and Inland Empire.

Coachella Valley will see highs from 67 to 72 degrees. Meanwhile, in the Antelope Valley, cooler conditions will continue with highs from 54 to 64 degrees.

This weekend will be fairly windy across SoCal starting Saturday evening. The National Weather Service forecasts winds from 15 to 25 mph across L.A. County mountains and hills. Come Sunday, winds will be strongest in Inland Empire and inland Orange County, where gusts could range from 30 to 40 mph.

The Los Angeles City Council has approved plans to hire more police officers this year, ending a months-long struggle over the city budget with the mayor's office.

The vote this week will allow LAPD to hire 410 officers, up from the 240 included in the city's original budget for this fiscal year.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass had pushed for the additional hires, citing the coming World Cup and Olympic Games, while some councilmembers questioned where the money would come from.

In December, the City Council voted to allow for an additional 40 officers to be added to the force, using the city's general fund.

This week's vote got Bass the rest of the way there. It will bring LAPD's ranks to around 8,500 sworn officers. At its height in 2009, the police force had more than 10,000.

It's a victory for Bass' office, but she said in a statement that hiring still is not keeping up with attrition.

"Although this is an important step, there is more work to do to invest in the safety of Angelenos,” Bass said.

The council approved the additional hires only after City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo found that the funds could come from the police department rather than the city's general fund.

In a report submitted to the council last week, Szabo identified around $3 million in funds from LAPD savings and a projected surplus in an account used to pay officers their accumulated overtime when they retire.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez called the move "robbing Peter to pay Paul." Councilmember Tim McOsker called it "robbing Peter to pay Peter." They both supported the motion.

But the funds identified by the city administrative officer will only cover the new hires this fiscal year. In his report, Szabo estimated that adding 170 more recruits to LAPD and resources in the personnel department to support them would cost around $25 million in the next fiscal year. He suggested his office could identify potential police department budget reductions or general fund revenues in next year's budget cycle to continue funding the new officers.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the budget and finance committee, voted for the plan to add new hires. She said Wednesday that most councilmembers were supportive of increasing the ranks of sworn officers but expressed dissatisfaction with the process that led to this move.

"I would have preferred that this issue of these additional officers that weren't in the budget that was adopted and signed by the mayor was addressed in the next budget," Yaroslavsky said. "But that being said, here we are."

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez was not convinced. He told the council he thought the ongoing cost of additional hires likely would lead to cuts elsewhere.

"A budget is a document of our priorities," Soto-Martinez said. "And it just feels like every single time, LAPD gets what they want. Every single time. And the conversations that are not happening in the public is about how that affects other things that the city does."

He voted against the extra hires, along with councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Nithya Raman.

Soto-Martinez, who sits on the public safety committee, also said he wanted more transparency on police spending on costs like overtime. He said every quarter the city spends $50 million on police overtime.

Soto-Martinez and Raman introduced a motion instructing the city administrative officer and legislative analyst to transfer some LAPD auditing and accounting into a new bureau of police oversight within the city controller's office. That motion was referred to the personnel and hiring committee.

Police Chief Jim McDonnell pushed back against that idea Wednesday, saying it would take additional personnel away from the department.

"We're working on a skeleton crew," he said. "We're two years out from the Olympics, five months out from the World Cup, and we've got a deficit [of officers]."

The vote came after LAPD requested nearly $100 million in its proposed budget for next fiscal year for new vehicles and equipment to police the Olympic Games.

Spending in Orange County decreased by about 25% after immigration enforcement ramped up last summer, according to a study by UC Irvine’s Social Impact Hub.

Study authors also analyzed data from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to find Orange County saw economic output drop by $58.9 million over an eight-week period last year, coinciding with ramped up ICE enforcement, leading to $4.5 million less in sales tax.

“ I wish I could say I was surprised or shocked. I'm really not,” said O.C. Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, whose office partnered with the study authors to create and distribute the study survey among business communities. “I think what the results and findings showed was that we can quantify the impact that all of us logically believe is occurring.”

Sarmiento added that the results show it’s not just the labor supply, where industries like construction and hospitality are heavily reliant on immigrants, that is affected by immigration raids.

“ We also are seeing that there is a demand side that is affecting our economy, meaning that there are countless consumers from the immigrant and undocumented population that have significant purchasing power,” he said.

After President Donald Trump promised to carry out the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history, Southern California became the epicenter, with federal agents carrying out raids across the region, including in Orange County. And they haven’t taken their foot off the gas, causing prolonged periods of fear and uncertainty for businesses that can be difficult to sustain, Sarmiento said.

“Small businesses, especially ones that don't have reserves and don't have excess funds on hand to be able to sustain themselves, will probably end up failing and will probably end up closing down,” he said.

Small-business owner weighs in

LAist checked in again with Alejandra Vargas. She runs a small boutique selling clothing and knick-knacks on Fourth Street in Santa Ana. In June, she said she lost around 80% of her walk-in customers.

Those numbers are still bleak.

“ Where we're at on Fourth Street, it's still empty. There's no people still,” she said.

Vargas has since had to pivot her business model. When the raids started, she began hosting paint-and-sip events for the community to decompress and create art, which brought in more customers. Her next one is right in time for Valentine’s Day, where people will listen to funk music and paint figurines.

She has also tried her hand at online sales.

But because of the ongoing ICE sweeps, people remain hesitant to spend money. And it’s also “nerve wrecking,” Vargas said, because she’s visibly a Latina.

“ I'd rather put up a fight than do nothing,” she said.

Preying on the vulnerable

Sarminento also said his office has seen an uptick in calls from people falling victim to scams. Undocumented workers are being exploited by employers withholding wages. And he said there are phony businesses popping up preying on vulnerable, scared immigrants looking to find legal help.

 ”We've been in contact with the district attorney's office to look into that,” he said.