LA Times Reporter Clara Harter Mistakenly Locates Old Exxon/Mobil Oil Well Under House On Agapanthus Street Ladera Ranch CA, This is False!

LA Times Reporter Clara Harter Claims Old Exxon/Mobil Oil Well is Under a House On Agapanthus Street Ladera Ranch CA, This is False! The decades old abandoned oil well near/under Poets Park in Ladera Ranch CA is NOT located under anyone's house as reporter Clara Harter at the LA Times reported Aug 30, 2026, it is under Merriwather PL (see CalGEM map above) close to where a manhole cover is located marked SEWER near Poets Park, cross streets are Merriweather PL/Agapanthus St in Ladera Ranch CA. Exact location, Latitude and Longitude numbers, the Exxon/Mobil oil well is near Poets Park Ladera Ranch CA at 33°32'44.1"N 117°38'10.3"W.

LA Times and reporter Clara Harter, "The Misidentification": Public records and community corrections note that a LA Times front page article of Sunday Aug 30th, 2026 mistakenly localized an old, abandoned Exxon/Mobil oil well directly under a specific residential home on Agapanthus Street in Ladera Ranch CA. The Reality: Local media corrections and fact-checks confirmed this information is false. The abandoned well is actually located near Poets Park in Ladera Ranch and is not located underneath any private residential house. Note to LA Times reporter Clara Harter it is not a good idea to falsely list the home owners address # as the exact location for an old abandoned oil well deep drilled in 1961, being under their house, this is libelous and could affect the value of the house. 

I have/had put an immense amount of time, energy, and meticulous effort into researching the historical oil wells beneath Ladera Ranch, California and the problems re-capping them in July 2001. To see a major publication like the Los Angeles Times publish a front-page story on that exact topic on Sunday, August 30, 2026—featuring deep-dive details like the unearthing of old state records—without giving me shred of credit, feels incredibly frustrating and invalidating and prone for me to claim Plagiarism!

The exact location off all abandoned oil wells in California is found in Cal-GEM well finder by the oil wells API number. The oil wells location is given in Latitude and Longitude numbers, the well near/under Poets Park Ladera Ranch CA is 33°32'44.1"N  117°38'10.3"W, it is under the street by the sewer manhole cover. Near cross streets are Merriweather PL/Agapanthus St, the old oil well is under the street at Merriweather PL and not under anyone's house like what Clara Harter at the LA Times published on Aug 30th, 2026, click on numbers for map.

Newsflash for LA Times reporter Clara Harter, it is not a good idea to falsely list the home owners exact address (house #) on Agapanthus Street as the location for an abandoned oil well from 1961 as being under their house, this is libelous and could affect the value of the house in the future. LA Times and reporter Clara Harter could be subject to a lawsuit from the home owner on Agapanthus Street Ladera Ranch CA.

The Exxon Mobil oil well near/under Poets Park Ladera Ranch CA was originally deep drilled down to 8,365 feet in 1961, about 1.5 miles and not properly re-capped in July 2001. Residents and officials in Ladera Ranch, California, have raised alarms over a cluster of exceptionally rare pediatric cancers, specifically Ewing sarcoma and synovial sarcoma, affecting roughly 12 children and young adults.  

The so called re-abondonment of the decades old oil well at/under Poets Park on July 19, 2001 is bogus. Paul Frost engineer and rep for DOGGR was at the Poets Park Ladera Ranch CA job site from 9:30 am to 10:30 am on Thursday July 19, 2001. Paul Frost called DOGGR home office in Sacramento CA at 10:30 am to get an OK to close the well by plugging the well from 351 feet up to the surface, as they could not get past an obstruction at 351', leaving the other 8,014 feet to the bottom open to the elements.  

"Evidence now, theories later" my independent investigation of rare cancer cluster in Ladera Ranch CA and two abandoned oil & gas wells deep drilled thousands of feet underground that I published on July 25th, 2026 about 'not building over' the poorly re-capped wells in July 2001 by DMB Ladera LLC the developer of the $100 million dollar project. Inside The Ladera Ranch CA Oil & Gas Wells Cover-Up by DMB Ladera LLC Developer Knew About The Decades Old Oil Wells Back In 2001 But Kept It Secret for 25 years.

 * Note media at LA Times Clara Harter and Zain Khan at California Post, a dry well (DH) is not a well void of all contents you can't take a flashlight and look down the 8,365 foot dry hole and see the bottom, OMG. A "dry hole" (DH) in California—including the one drilled down 8,365 feet in 1961 near/under Poets Park—does not mean absolutely nothing was found, "do a little research and prep work before you publish your conclusions". 

In the oil and gas industry, a "dry hole" is a strict economic and regulatory term, not a literal description of an empty borehole. The California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM, formerly DOGGR) classifies a well as a dry hole (DH) if it is incapable of producing oil or gas in sufficient quantities to justify commercial completion, they still leak oil.

Good reporters rely on the foundational "Five Ws and H" who, what, when, where, why, and how to build clear, accurate, and complete news stories. latitude and longitude, in cartography, a coordinate system used to determine and describe the position of any place on Earth’s surface. Latitude is a measurement of a location north or south of the Equator. In contrast, longitude is a measurement of location east or west of the prime meridian at Greenwich (an imaginary north-south line that passes through both geographic poles and Greenwich, London, England, U.K.). Latitude and longitude together can describe the exact location of any place on Earth.

VIDEO above: Ladera Ranch CA has two abandoned oil wells sitting deep drilled underground that could be leaking carcinogenic benzene and deadly hydrogen sulfide H2S gas, one is near a kids playground at Poets Park. I first warned of these very potential deadly problems on July 25, 2026.

Deep wells tapping into older, sulfur-rich hydrocarbon formations (often referred to as "sour" zones) frequently experience degradation of their original cement plugs and steel casings over time. This structural failure creates a direct pathway for highly hazardous subsurface gases to migrate thousands of feet back up to the surface.

Researchers hypothesize that emissions like benzene and other aromatic hydrocarbons possess clastogenic (chromosome-breaking) properties that might cause DNA damage via oxidative stress from old abandoned crude oil & gas wells plugged & capped (P&A) that contain hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) gas. 

The exact root cause of the genetic swap between chromosome 11 and chromosome 22 (called a translocation) that leads to Ewing Sarcoma is unknown, and it happens completely at random after a person is born. Ewing Sarcoma is not inherited from parents. Oil and gas development (OGD) has been linked to increased pediatric cancer risk, but the literature to date is focused on hematologic malignancies and active wells. The emergence of suspected clusters of cancers such as Ewing sarcoma in children living near OGD and widespread presence of abandoned wells plugged & capped (P&A) in California warrants investigation. 

Sarasota Private Investigator Bill Warner, True Crime Stories, Bill Warner Investigations Sarasota Fl