Standing Together to End Neighborhood Oil Drilling
After years of dedicated advocacy and persistence, frontline communities were dealt a setback earlier this year when the Los Angeles City Council had to revoke the 2022 ordinance aimed at phasing out oil wells in the city.
Unsurprisingly, the City's efforts to put an end to toxic extraction were contested in court by Big Oil, leading to a judge officially blocking the ordinance last September. Revoking the ordinance means that after a decade of community outpour and advocacy, oil and gas extraction will be allowed to resume, putting the health and safety of LA residents at risk.
Nevertheless, frontline organizers and activists are determined to stand their ground. During the recent STAND-LA Action Day, coalition members, alongside residents and Liberty Hill donor activists, gathered at City Hall to demand LA leaders to accelerate the phase-out timeline and close oil drilling sites once and for all.
Members of the STAND-LA coalition met with representatives and elected officials from across the City, highlighting the urgent need to reinstate the oil well ban that so many LA organizers, public health experts, and climate and social justice advocates have been championing since 2014.
Los Angeles is home to approximately 1,900 oil wells that produce harmful fossil fuels. The majority of oil wells are located in low-income Black and Latino communities like South Los Angeles and Wilmington, who bear the brunt of these harms for the benefit of wealthier and white communities.
Communities living near these sites experience negative health impacts ranging from throat irritation, burning eyes, chronic headaches, and respiratory harm. It is an environmental injustice to allow oil companies to drill with impunity in low-income BIPOC communities where residents are facing numerous environmental, social, and public health stressors.
As a founding member of the STAND-LA coalition, Liberty Hill is committed to stand together with community organizations leading the fight to ban oil drilling in LA.
To protect our homes and communities, improve the air quality and health for communities living near oil wells, and move toward a just and clean energy future, we need to ensure our city’s recovery also means ending neighborhood oil drilling.
