Well, Well: Oil Rigs Return

Elsewhere, drills have masqueraded as a Venice Beach lighthouse and a 13-story office building. The derrick at Beverly Hills High School hides inside a decorated tower.

But oil wells haven't always been so unobtrusive.

Flash back to the 1890s, when prospector Edward Doheny transformed a 60-foot tree trunk into a primitive drill and struck a vein of black gold near Echo Park. Aspiring Jed Clampetts promptly ripped up homes in downtown Los Angeles and planted a forest of oil derricks.

The same thing happened in Huntington Beach in the 1920s and '50s, according to news accounts. Colonies of pumps sprang up along local beaches. Just up the coast, Signal Hill became carpeted with so many derricks that it was nicknamed Porcupine Hill.

Then, in 1969, a massive oil spill tarred the shoreline in Santa Barbara -- and public opinion began to sour.

The backlash gained ground in the 1980s and '90s. As oil prices nosedived and land values and environmental restrictions soared, oil companies decided it was more lucrative to replace rigs with houses.

A surprising hunk of Los Angeles County and Orange County real estate now rests atop oil reservoirs, according to state maps of abandoned wells.

As oil attorney Bruce Webster once complained to Los Angeles magazine: "They ruined a perfectly good oil field by building a city on top of it."

It was a shortsighted move, said USC's Ershagi: "In L.A., we've shut down many wells after only 20% to 25% of the oil is extracted. That's ridiculous."

In contrast, Norway drains at least 50% of a reserve -- the approximate upper limit using current technology -- before allowing a well to be plugged, he noted.

To ease the current energy crunch, Ershagi favors replenishing Southern California's stock of urban oil rigs. But this time, there's no need to knock down homes, he said. Modern slant-angle drills can tap into oil pockets six miles from the actual pump.

But slant drilling is costly, so some petroleum barons prefer performing CPR on abandoned wells.

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Steering a golf cart around Coyote Hills Golf Course in Fullerton, Tim Duncan represents urban oil drilling's new face.

Duncan manages the hilly course, which serves as an Audubon International-certified wildlife sanctuary for gnatcatchers, cactus wrens and other critters. It's also home to two dozen oil rigs and a sprawling petroleum processing plant.