Los Angeles Urban Oil Drilling: California’s Black Heroin
by J. Sedillo
Site Description:
Oil was discovered in Los Angeles County in the early 1890’s, the ‘Los Angeles Oil Field’ was once the top producing oil field in California. Though Los Angeles county is the highest populated counties in the US, Los Angeles remains the largest urban oil field in the country. Oil rigs dot the city but are often hidden from sight through the use of tall fences, clandestine structures or by drilling in Los Angeles often overlooked low-income neighborhoods. Oil companies drill wells and use toxic industrial chemicals on well sites just feet away from homes, schools, and medical facilities. I want to study the history of the Los Angeles oil field and it’s relation with Los Angeles residents and the state’s dependency on continued oil production; in hope to understand if urban drilling has hazardous effects on the environment, analyze the systematic unfairness of the exploited urban communities, and look to see if California legislature is doing anything to ensure a greener future for all its residents.
Final Report:
Primary Sources:
Olalde, M., & Menezes, R. (2020, February 6). Idle oil wells are California’s toxic multibillion-dollar problem. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-oil-well-drilling-idle-cleanup/
This report according to a months-long data analysis and investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Center for Public Integrity recounts LA’s oil production history and its practices. This article covers the toxins released by oils and their effect of the population and effects on climate and asks a key question if whether California’s oil industry — once a top-three U.S. producer — has the resources and staying power to pay for future cleanups.
Liberty Hill. (2015). DRILLING DOWN: The Community Consequences of Expanded Oil Development in Los Angeles. https://libertyhill-assets.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/documents/Drilling_Down_Report_-_Full.pdf
This report shares stories of residents who are living very close to oil drilling and production operations where toxic chemicals and potentially hazardous well stimulation technologies are used to extract oil from the ground.
California Council on Science & Technology (CCST). (2019, March 5). Potential Impacts of Well Stimulation on Human
Health in California/ (SB4). https://ccst.us/wp-content/uploads/160708-sb4-vol-II-6-1.pdf
This article addresses environmental public health and occupational health hazards that are directly attributable to well stimulation or indirectly associated with oil and gas development facilitated by well stimulation in California.
Location: California
completed: July 2016
In Los Angeles, oil and gas production developed simultaneously with the growth of the city. The Los Angeles Basin has world-class oil reservoirs, with the most concentrated oil in the world. Hazards that are a direct result to well stimulation primarily consist of human exposures to well stimulation chemicals through inadvertent or intentional release to water, air, or soil followed by environmental fate of chemicals used in well and transport processes. To gain insight this article created a ranking scheme of toxic hazard chemicals and the reported quantities used in well stimulation operation and their effect on human health. The closer citizens are to welling industrial facilities, the more potentially elevated their exposure to Toxic Air Contaniments and other hazardous toxins lead to long term health implications to the community.
Among known air contaminants, compounds of particular concern that are known to be emitted during the well-stimulation-enabled oil and gas development process (and from oil and gas development in general) are BTEX compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene), formaldehyde; hydrogen sulfide; particulate matter (PM); nitrogen oxides (NOx); sulfur dioxide (SO2); polycyclic aromatic, aliphatic, and aromatic hydrocarbons; and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can contribute to tropospheric ozone formation. The oil and gas industry commonly uses strong acids along with other toxic substances, such as corrosion inhibitors, for both routine maintenance and well stimulation.Well acidizing requires the use of hydrochloric (HCl) and hydrofluoric (HF) acid. In many cases, HF is created at the oilfield by mixing hydrochloric acid with ammonium fluoride and immediately injecting the mix down the well. Data suggest that Toxic Air Contaniments are likely more elevated close to compared to far from active oil and gas development, and that emissions of TACs in areas of high population density like the Los Angeles Basin result in larger population exposure.
Secondary Sources:
Olalde, M., & Menezes, R. (2020, February 6). Idle oil wells are California’s toxic multibillion-dollar problem. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-oil-well-drilling-idle-cleanup/
This report according to a months-long data analysis and investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Center for Public Integrity recounts LA’s oil production history and its practices. Across much of California, fossil fuel companies are leaving thousands of oil and gas wells unplugged and idle, potentially threatening the health of people living nearby and handing taxpayers a multibillion-dollar bill for the environmental cleanup.This articles covers the toxins released by oils and their effect of the population and effects on climate and asks a key question if whether California’s oil industry — once a top-three U.S. producer — has the resources and staying power to pay for future cleanups.
Liberty Hill. (2015). DRILLING DOWN: The Community Consequences of Expanded Oil Development in Los Angeles. https://libertyhill-assets.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/documents/Drilling_Down_Report_-_Full.pdf
This report shares stories of residents who are living very close to oil drilling and production operations where toxic chemicals and potentially hazardous well stimulation technologies are used to extract oil from the ground.
California Council on Science & Technology (CCST). (2019, March 5). Well Stimulation in California (SB4). https://ccst.us/reports/well-stimulation-in-california/
The Los Angeles Basin is unique in its exceptional natural concentration of oil directly beneath a dense urban population. In few other places in the world has simultaneous petroleum development and urbanization occurred to such an extent. Conflicts of oil and city life are not new to Los Angeles, but recent reports suggesting the possibility of additional large-scale oil production enabled by hydraulic fracturing, coupled with the ever increasing encroachment of urbanization on the existing oil fields, lends a particular urgency to the need to understand the public health implications of having millions of people who live, work, play, and learn in close proximity to billions of barrels of crude oil. This report reviews the numbers and demographics of residents, schools, daycare centers and other “sensitive receptors” in proximity to existing active oil and gas development operations.