Stocker Resources Company

In a victory for environmentalists and nearby homeowners, an energy company announced Thursday that it was abandoning its plan to build a power plant on the site of a proposed state park in the Baldwin Hills. La Jolla Energy Development Inc., in a letter to the state Energy Commission, said it was withdrawing its application for fast-track approval of the 53-megawatt plant and "will not pursue the Baldwin facility in the future."

In a victory for environmentalists and nearby homeowners, an energy company announced Thursday that it was abandoning its plan to build a power plant on the site of a proposed state park in the Baldwin Hills. La Jolla Energy Development Inc., in a letter to the state Energy Commission, said it was withdrawing its application for fast-track approval of the 53-megawatt plant and "will not pursue the Baldwin facility in the future."

Does a power plant serve a greater public good than a park? Stocker Resources oil company wants to build a 53-megawatt plant smack in the middle of land earmarked for a Baldwin Hills park. Its application to the state Energy Commission is on a fast track under emergency orders issued by Gov. Gray Davis to ease California's energy crisis. But Davis also signed the measure creating the Baldwin Hills Conservancy, a state agency charged with acquiring and managing the land.

Despite long-standing efforts by civic boosters and Hollywood studios to promote Los Angeles as a paradise of sandy beaches and palm trees, few cities have done less to protect their natural legacy. The city is on the verge of adding another chapter to that disquieting history.

Despite offering some of the best views in the Los Angeles Basin, the Baldwin Hills have had a tough time earning their due respect. They've been scalped and terraced, deluged by a burst dam in 1963 and pecked away by hundreds of creaking oil pumps for more than 70 years. High above the urban plain, the terrain now is a mix of eroded ravines, middle-class homes and working oil fields. But these weedy slopes could be in for a transformation.