OIL PIPELINE APPROVED DESPITE CITY PROTESTS.

Byline: Steven J. Gorman Daily News Staff Writer

State regulators approved a proposed 132-mile oil pipeline that would run through the northeast San Fernando Valley, rebuffing demands of opponents Wednesday for further environmental study of the project.

``The only unavoidable significant adverse impacts for the project are those associated with oil spills and pipeline ruptures,'' the commission said in a statement released with its ruling. ``The only way to avoid these impacts is to stop shipping oil.''

The decision came two days after the Los Angeles Department of Environmental Affairs charged that state regulators have failed to thoroughly weigh alternatives that would avoid the biggest risks associated with the Pacific Pipeline plan.

Among the risks is the potential for contamination of aqueducts carrying most of the city's water supply in the event of a major pipeline rupture.

Northeast Valley activists seeking to block construction of the pipeline fear another fiery rupture like one on a pipeline in San Fernando in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

``They don't live in the San Fernando Valley. They don't care,'' Francisco Flores, a teacher who has organized local opposition to the pipeline, said of the commissioners. ``At any moment, that pipeline could bust and ruin my community.''

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, a leading foe of plans to build the 20-inch-wide pipeline, said he expected the city to ask the California Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its decision.

Failing that, the City Council could vote to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court and ultimately file its own legal challenge to the project.

The commission, Alarcon said, ``seemed predisposed and predetermined to approve the project.''

``If there has to be a pipeline, then it has to be placed in the safest location,'' he said. ``They have not reviewed all the options and opportunities so as to determine this is the safest alternative.''

In January, the council voted to instruct the city attorney to prepare such a lawsuit should state regulators approve an environmental study for the pipeline the city sees as faulty.

Barring legal challenges, construction could begin later this year, officials for the pipeline have said.

Approval of the project by the Public Utilities Commission represents perhaps the biggest regulatory hurdle for the pipeline.

But opponents will have an additional chance to raise objections when the consortium of oil companies backing the pipeline - Chevron, Texaco and Unocal - applies for city permits to build portions of the pipeline beneath city streets.

As proposed, the Pacific Pipeline would carry up to 130,000 barrels of crude oil daily from Kern County to refineries in Wilmington, El Segundo and Carson.

About 12 miles of the pipeline would pass through the Valley along a Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way in Sylmar, San Fernando, Pacoima and Sun Valley before crossing into Burbank and Glendale on its way south.

In its decision Wednesday, the commission accepted the final environmental impact report prepared for the project and said ``mitigation measures'' suggested in the study to curb air pollution and disturbance of wildlife habitat during construction were adopted as conditions of approval.

But critics of the plan say the environmental study sanctioned by the commission failed to adequately consider at least two alternatives that would involve expansion and modification of existing pipelines.

The city Department of Water and Power has said the proposed pipeline would run beneath two aqueducts that carry up to 75 percent of the city's water supply.

In the event of a catastrophic spill there, oil could flow directly into the city's water filtration plant, forcing a shutdown and massive cleanup problems, said Bob Simmons, assistant director of the department's water supply division.

But he said the pipeline consortium has agreed informally to additional construction safeguards that would reduce the risk of such an occurrence significantly.

He said the department's general manager and governing board will ``decide whether it's acceptable.''

Besides citing the potential threat to the city's water, a report issued Monday by the Environmental Affairs Department said the proposed pipeline route ``targets some of the most densely populated areas of the city,'' and disproportionately affects low-income and minority communities.

The report said the final environmental study of the pipeline gave short shrift to competing pipeline proposals that might have avoided and diminished all of these impacts.

Pipeline officials, while acknowledging that the risk of rupture never can be eliminated, promise state-of-the-art construction technology and safety features to minimize the danger of spills.

CAPTION(S):

2 Maps, Photo

Map: (1) The Pacific Pipeline which was approved We dnesday by the California Public Utilities Commission would carry crude oil from Kern County to refineries in Los Angeles. It would parallel San Fernando Road through the San Fernando Valley.

(2) All American Pipeline

Photo: Teacher Francisco Flores has helped organize opposition to the Pacific Pipeline, which would run near his school along tracks in San Fernando.

Daily News/John McCoy