The mostly low-income, Latino residents of Arvin have joined with other communities to demand setbacks for wells. Their slogan: “No drilling where we are living.”
By Julia Kane Inside Climate News
In Arvin, a small, agricultural town at the southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley, pollution is a pervasive part of life. Pesticides sprayed on industrial-scale farms, fumes drifting from the region’s ubiquitous oil and gas wells, exhaust from the trucks barrelling down Interstate 5—it all gets trapped in the valley, creating a thick haze. This year the American Lung Association ranked Bakersfield, just 15 miles northwest of Arvin, as the worst metropolitan area in the U.S. in terms of annual particle pollution.
Arvin’s residents, like people in many other parts of California, are especially concerned by the oil and gas wells sprinkled throughout their community. These wells, sometimes drilled and operated in close proximity to neighborhoods, schools, and health care centers, release a toxic mix of hydrogen sulfide, benzene, xylene, hexane and formaldehyde into the air.
Related news: The toxic legacy of old oil wells: California’s multibillion-dollar problem
Studies have linked living near oil and gas extraction to a wide range of adverse health effects, including increased risk of asthma, respiratory illnesses, preterm birth, low birthweight and cancer—serious fears for the more than two million Californians who live within a quarter-mile of operational oil and gas wells.
Creating a setback distance between oil and gas operations and places where people live, researchers have found, reduces the risks. Yet in California, the industry operates under a patchwork of regulations, with no statewide rule on setbacks—a regulatory gap that is rare among the nation’s top oil-producing states.
California is a paradox; though widely regarded as one of the most environmentally-conscious states, the oil industry wields considerable power here, and has consistently attempted to thwart new regulations, including public health protections. During the current legislative session, the Western States Petroleum Association and Chevron have been the two top lobbying groups in the state, spending $9.9 billion and $7.5 billion, respectively.
But in Arvin, a small group of mostly low-income, Latino residents is going against the grain, taking on the big oil companies in a David-versus-Goliath fight to protect the environment and their health. Their struggle is unusual in Kern County, where pumpjacks sucking heavy crude from the parched floor of the San Joaquin Valley stretch for miles. Here, in one of the poorest parts of the state, oil means big money: the county extracts 70 percent of the oil and 78 percent of the gas produced in California.
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