Statement from Liberty Hill Director of Common Agenda, Michele Prichard on L.A. County Report on Oil Drilling

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health validated today what hundreds of residents living near urban oil drilling sites have already known: proximity to oil drilling is hazardous to their health. Many active oil wells in Los Angeles are next to places where people live, work and play, causing nosebleeds, nausea, respiratory illness and dizziness. The County report makes clear that officials should not wait any longer to put protections in place for those living near oil production operations. In Los Angeles, the nation’s largest urban oil field, communities have been clear in their demands for health and safety buffer zones to protect them from the dangers of neighborhood oil extraction.

Oil drilling happens in many neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles, but it is often concentrated in communities where freeways and other toxic manufacturing facilities are also located. It is unfair to ask these communities to bear the health costs of an industry that should be in decline. The health hazards that many Angelenos face because of oil drilling reinforce the need to transition to cleaner energy sources that protect our environment and people’s lives. We stand beside thousands of residents who are demanding that City officials take action now to end the health risks posed by neighborhood oil drilling.”

For more on the negative impacts of neighborhood oil drilling read Liberty Hill’s “Drilling Down: The Community Consequences of Expanded Oil Development in L.A.” report, which offers testimony from Angelenos living with the consequences of L.A.'s underregulated oil industry.

Liberty Hill stands in solidarity with STAND LA in the fight to end oil drilling near homes, schools and hospitals.