In the void of state leadership, a movement to change the rules has been growing as environmental justice groups have sprung into action. Texas, North Dakota, and Colorado, all larger oil-producing states than California, already have buffer zones to protect their residents. While California has no state mandates for buffer zones between oil and gas wells and homes, schools, and hospitals, other states have enacted modest setbacks. No California leader has managed to end the state’s shameful, century-long history of neighborhood drilling. Nalleli Cobo moved into the Esperanza Apartments, across the street from the AllenCo drill site in Los Angeles, when she was four years old. Between 20, more than a million babies were born in California to mothers who live within one kilometer (roughly 3,000 feet) of an oil or gas well. Weighing less than 5.5 pounds, low-birthweight infants face higher rates of illnesses such as respiratory diseases and difficulty fighting infections, as well as developmental delays.Īnd because of California’s population density, those health impacts threaten an astounding number of people. A Stanford study of 225,000 births from mothers who live within six miles of oil and gas wells in the Central Valley found an increased likelihood of spontaneous preterm birth, the leading cause of infant death in the United States.Īnother study found that a mother living near rural oil and gas wells pumping out more than 100 barrels a day is more likely to have an infant with low birthweight.
Pregnant women who live close to oil and gas operations are more likely to experience complications in their pregnancies. And as oil reserves diminish after decades of extraction, companies resort to even more polluting techniques, using a slew of toxic chemicals to extract the last dregs of crude oil.Īn active oil derrick at Signal Hill's popular Hilltop Park.
Though the industry tends to obscure the chemical contents of their slurries and methods, drilling is known to create chemical byproducts such as benzene (a known carcinogen) and hydrogen sulfide that can cause health problems. We now know that the pollution caused by neighborhood drilling has likely affected the health of multiple generations.Ĭalifornians living near oil and gas wells are exposed to a mix of air pollutants that can cause asthma, cancers, pregnancy complications, preterm births, and increased risk of dying from COVID-19 because of long-term exposure to air pollution. While policymakers have ignored the problem, researchers have been investigating the public health impacts of neighborhood drilling. Oil rigs dot cities across Southern California but are often hidden from sight by tall fences, green paint, and Hollywood magic, with cloaking structures like fake buildings, towers, and palm-tree adorned “ oil islands” in Long Beach.ĭrilling in California communities has fueled a multi-generational health crisis that children today are inheriting. Today, despite shrinking oil reserves and the growth of affordable clean energy solutions and zero-emissions vehicles, drilling is still pervasive across the state. In the decades that followed, the state’s political leaders allowed oil and gas development to continue even as Southern California’s small towns were quickly becoming major population centers. But in that time, other economic engines in the Golden State were roaring, and its population had grown to 1.2 million residents. Several earthquakes in that era, including the 6.4 magnitude Long Beach earthquake in 1933, were likely caused by the industry’s early practices.īy 1930, California was producing nearly one quarter of the world's oil output.
Oil derricks were installed in neighborhoods, beaches, and even the Venice Canals as California became the country’s largest oil producer. In the 1890s, oil was discovered in what is now the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, and the landscape was transformed by extraction as the industry soon boomed. Oil and gas drilling can happen where you’d least expect it in California.
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