Timeline

Beginning in the mid-eighteen hundreds southeast Huntington Beach was an agricultural area dominated by row crops.

In the 1950s, Orange County constructed a regional flood control channel on the west side of the property (Huntington Beach Channel) which separated the agricultural operations from a remnant coastal wetland on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).

The adjacent power plant was constructed between 1957 and 1967 by Southern California Edison (SCE).

Since 1972, the site included heavy industrial use with a fuel oil storage facility containing three above-ground, 25 million gallon tanks.

AES Southland purchased the power plant in 1998, and later converted it to use only natural gas. With the conversion of the power plant to natural gas, there was no longer a need to store fuel oil on the Magnolia Tank Farm site.

In recent years the exterior of the tanks have deteriorated and been vandalized, creating a public nuisance and a blight on the coastal landscape.

In 2013, the City of Huntington Beach issued a Coastal Development Permit (CDP) to Plains All-American Pipeline for the demolition of the three storage tanks and associated pipelines and ancillary facilities. The permit allowed the demolition and removal of the storage tanks and some minor grading to facilitate drainage.

The demolition of the three storage tanks was completed and AES is using the site for construction laydown yard.