CENTURY-OLD OIL OPERATIONS END IN NEW PARK : LAST WELLS CAPPED AT NEWHALL HIKING AREA.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Daily News Staff Writer

Five deserted oil wells have been capped in the new Santa Clarita Woodlands Park, marking an end to a century of oil field operations in western Newhall as well as a long-running dispute with the former owner.

The state Department of Conservation finished the two-month job last week, and park officials are cleaning up the puddles of gooey oil that seeped from the old abandoned wells in rugged upper Towsley Canyon.

``There were two wells that were leaking and had pools of oil around them 10 or 12 feet across,'' said Patrick Kinnear, a district deputy for the department. ``One well was above the creek and could have contaminated it. It was not a good situation.'' Another well was open and posed a hazard to hikers, he said.

Typically, wells that no longer produce are plugged by the operator, but the last operator of record, SWC Resources, could not be located in 10 years of attempts, Department of Conservation spokeswoman Pamela Morris said.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy bought 270 acres surrounding the wells in 1991 in a rushed deal to prevent Los Angeles County from buying up property in the canyon for use as a landfill.

The sellers retained exploration, development and production rights on the land, and the conservancy held funds in escrow to cover plugging the wells if state officials declared that necessary. Conservancy officials said negotiations to have one of the sellers clean up his land were fruitless.

The Department of Conservation contracted with a private company to plug the wells and to remove junked oil-drilling equipment and debris. The conservancy will reimburse the department with the escrow funds.

``This is property that had been oil field since the early 1900s,'' Kinnear said.

There had been about 20 wells in the immediate area. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which bought Woodlands Park parcel by parcel, capped most of the other wells. Chevron USA, which owned most of the Woodlands, capped its wells before turning the land over to the conservancy last year.

The Department of Conservation, funded in part by oil company royalties, is charged with dismantling abandoned oil fields to ensure environmental integrity, Morris said.

``With some 1,200 orphaned wells statewide, it's important that we take advantage of every opportunity to properly plug and abandon those which can no longer be productive or which pose environmental threats,'' B.B. Blevins, acting director of the Department of Conservation said in a prepared statement.

The wells were within Ed Davis Park, part of the 3,500-acre Woodlands. The Woodlands cover forested canyons, oak groves and rugged terrain in the Santa Susana Mountains west of Santa Clarita.

The area shelters rare plants and other wildlife, and it is popular among hikers.

The wells have been idle for at least five years and were considered by the state to be deserted. The state oil and gas supervisor, who works within the Department of Conservation, ordered the wells plugged and properly abandoned.