There’s a ‘Lake’ of Oil Under LA’s Soon-to-Close Refinery. Who’s Going to Clean It Up?

This story was originally published by Capital & Main .

One of Los Angeles County’s most polluted stretches of land will soon 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 the neighborhood of Wilmington and nearby city of Carson buried truckloads of slop oil and acid sludge directly on site. Decades later, much of that waste is still 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