Gov. Newsom says the state is holding “Big Oil” accountable; fenceline communities say he’s leaving them behind.
In Signal Hill, California, an oil pump jack stands idle near homes, in February 2023. California law S.B. 1137, which required a safety buffer zone of 3,200 feet around homes and schools for new oil and gas drilling, was suspended after the petroleum industry last year collected enough signatures in a petition campaign to place a referendum on the 2024 general election ballot. The bill was originally signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom last year and also banned new drilling near parks, health care facilities, prisons, and businesses open to the public. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images.
By Liza Gross, Inside Climate News
The first thing Nalleli Cobo wanted to do when she heard the oil well in her South Los Angeles neighborhood was shutting down was scream. She had so much pent-up energy she didn’t know what else to do.
Cobo grew up breathing foul-smelling, toxic emissions from an oil production site just 30 feet from her home. She sometimes caught whiffs of chocolate and citrus, which she thinks came from chemicals used to mask the fetid smell. At first, she didn’t connect the unexplained ailments she couldn’t shake—uncontrolled nosebleeds, punishing headaches, stomach pains, and crippling body spasms—to the oil wells next door.
Cobo’s mother and sister suffered from similar health problems. When they started comparing notes with neighbors, they realized headaches, nosebleeds, and other ailments were rampant in their close-knit community, where most residents are low-income and Latino. They blamed the cluster of neighborhood wells that bordered their homes, a daycare, a senior living facility, and a school for students with disabilities.
Cobo was just 9 years old when she started organizing to end drilling at the facility that was making her community sick. That was 13 years ago.
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