Living with oil wells in Wilmington may include headaches, nausea and dizziness

For this series, Southern California News Group analyzed air-pollution data collected by South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Port of Los Angeles in Wilmington, San Pedro and Long Beach. The project focused on fine particulates, which include diesel emissions, released from 2010 to 2017.

The data comprised hourly readings from five sites around the region, was received in response to public records requests.

SCNG also installed portable PurpleAir monitors (purpleair.com) in three homes in Wilmington and San Pedro to provide additional data on particulates. The monitors record particulate levels every minute. This was done to cross-check the official data and to quantify exposure to pollution for individuals interviewed for the project. The devices were installed from mid-February to mid-March.

SCNG undertook this project in partnership with USC’s Center for Health Journalism, which supplied training, support and funding to purchase air pollution monitors. SCNG was solely responsible for the editorial content of the series.

The Flores family lives next door to two E&B Natural Resources oil wells and storage tanks over the Torrance Oil Field in Wilmington.

Gas and rotten-egg smells waft by their home sometimes, and noisy trucks kick up rocks as they roll down the narrow residential street daily. Oil tanks, just a few yards from the home, tower over backyard gatherings.

In 2015, during intensive well acidizing to remove sludge and increase production, the whole neighborhood reeked for weeks. A chemical cocktail of alcohols, acids, hydrocarbons and solvents laden with cancer-causing benzene were injected into the ground, according to South Coast Air Quality Management District records.

Florencio Flores said he worries that the oil company doesn’t prioritize the community’s health because its equipment looks old and his complaints never seem to be taken seriously.

“The tankers carry 45-foot containers so I don’t know why they’re allowed on the street,” Flores said. “When they used to pump the well, they had a ventilation pipe that put out a nauseating smell. One time, the side of this tank punctured and it was spraying oil. They put a temporary patch, like an aluminum seal, to hold it in place. I think that pipe should have been replaced.”

Cancer-causing chemicals spew from all oil-producing fields, including the one that abuts the Flores home.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said that drill sites be at least 1,500 feet from homes, in a February report on the dangers of living near oil wells.

Continuous air monitoring, increased oversight of oilfield operations, and a public community-safety plan should also be in place for those living near the county’s 3,468 oil wells, according to the report.

That isn’t happening for the Flores family or for most people living near wells in residential districts of L.A. County.

The family fears their mysterious headaches, rashes, and other health problems are related to the wells. Neighbors are battling cancer.

“I have no idea what effect it’s having on our health,” Flores said. “I worry about it.”

Anthony Flores, Florencio’s son, has a blood disorder that overloads his body with iron and requires him to have large amounts of blood drawn several times a year.

“Our health is our major concern,” Anthony Flores said. “My little grandson plays outside. Is the tank going to tip over or explode? The trucks load oil very loudly. Why isn’t the oil company more forthcoming about what they’re doing? All this goes through my mind.”

Vexing regulatory responses

In this information vacuum, the county has taken inconsistent positions on regulation of wells and truck traffic down narrow residential streets in what are largely low-income communities of color.

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation allows trucks on residential streets. But the agency says it will do an investigation into whether stricter regulations are needed if residents complain.

Last year, Los Angeles Petroleum Administrator Uduak-Joe Ntuk’s office ordered that a 45-foot-tall permanent enclosure be built around a South Los Angeles drill site on Jefferson Boulevard.  Residents complained of noise, traffic, odors and dangerous chemicals near their homes.

Some cities, like Carson, have introduced stricter rules requiring oil operators to extend setbacks and improve their signage and properties. Beverly Hills shut down wells next to its high school in 2016.

Hundreds of complaints about nausea, nose bleeds, headaches and other illnesses around AllenCo Energy’s oil field in South Los Angeles prompted air-quality regulators to investigate in 2014.

“They came and said: ‘everything’s fine,’” said Martha Martha Arguello, co-chair of Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling (STAND) LA.

Ultimately, an EPA administrator visited the site, opened an investigation that found dangerous releases of oil and fumes. The wells were shut down in 2016 pending environmental upgrades.

“It bothers me to know that, every day, people are being exposed and nobody thinks it’s urgent,” Arguello said. “We know that there are acute impacts: dizziness, bloody noses, asthma. People lose their sense of smell. It’s a really dangerous practice to be doing next to where people live. Right now, there’s very little regulatory relief.”

STAND-LA advocates for a 2,500-foot oil-well buffer in the city of Los Angeles. City staff is studying the issue, and is expected to present solutions to decision-makers in the coming months.

A statewide community air-monitoring network mandated by newly funded legislation could increase oversight of oil fields. But it could be years before the efforts bring regulatory intervention.

Oil spills, leaks

At the Flores home, E&B officials said they will soon start using a low-emissions truck to haul water and oil from the wells, which produced nearly 8,000 barrels of oil last year.

Complaints about smells and health impacts there are fielded to air-quality regulators, the state Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) and the county’s Department of Public Health.

“Regulations (by DOGGR and air-quality officials) are the nation’s toughest and are designed to protect public health and safety by controlling air emissions and odor for people living and working near production facilities,” said E&B Natural Resources spokesman Ted Cordova. “E&B Natural Resources posts contact information at various locations around the site. Our staff interact regularly with the neighbors.”

A September 2017 DOGGR inspection found several violations that agency spokesman Don Drysdale described as minor.

There were stains from uncleaned oil leaks around the site. Investigators witnessed a small leak when oil was transferred to a truck, and a well was misidentified on a spill-plan diagram for emergency response planning.

Also, the block wall separating the facility from the Flores home doesn’t meet state safety-enclosure standards. A chain-link fence topped by barbed wire is required at the site, but E&B officials hadn’t responded to the violation notice by July 2018.

Cordova said he was not aware of the violations.

The lack of upkeep worries residents.

“I tried complaining to the city,” Florencio Flores said. “They just passed the buck.”

Arguello said the Flores family’s experience is echoed by families across Los Angeles.

“If they’re not doing simple things like cleaning up spilled oil, what else is going on?,” she said. “We’re being told everything we’re experiencing is not serious. That invalidation of your own experience is one of the biggest violations of people’s right to a clean environment.”

Oil wells are just one source of environmental concern for the Flores family and their neighbors. The 110 freeway is nearby, and several refineries are within a few miles’ radius.

A PurpleAir monitor installed at the Flores home by Southern California News Group, in partnership with USC’s Center for Health Journalism, found toxic smog surges during rush hours.

Extreme levels of PM2.5, from 35 to 85 micrograms, were recorded on many days during the analysis at the Flores home. But, without detailed reports of the oil well site’s operations, it’s difficult to connect truck activity at the site to the pollution. Refinery flaring and heavy freeway traffic are also likely causes.

The monitor’s PM2.5 readings averaged 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air from mid-February through mid-March. The EPA considers chronic exposure to 12 micrograms hazardous.

But a growing body of scientific research shows that there is no safe level of air pollution.

This developing understanding prompted the EPA to lower the bar for acceptable long-terms PM2.5 exposure levels from 15 to 12 micrograms in recent years. New scientific evidence suggests an even lower standard is warranted.

“All of those assumptions about a safe threshold were devised 40 to 50 years ago when there was no evidence,” said Bruce Lanphear, a health-sciences professor at Simon Frasier University who studies connections between air pollution and disease for federal health agencies. “Over the past 10 years, studies that have looked at this question have shown there are no safe levels. For every increment, from 1 microgram and up, there are steep and substantial increases in the risk of people dying from heart disease.”

[This article was originally published by The Daily Breeze.]