Fight Big Oil For Californians’ Health

The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California is fighting to protect our neighborhoods from toxic oil drilling and uphold the 2022 law (SB1137) passed by the Legislature. This law prohibits toxic oil drilling within 3,200 feet of healthcare facilities, homes, schools, day care centers, parks, and businesses.

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Research shows that living near an oil well increases the risk of asthma, birth defects, high risk pregnancies, respiratory illnesses and cancer, and that the risks are greatest within half a mile.

Today, more than two million Californians are exposed to the most toxic emissions, and communities of color are harmed the most by neighborhood drilling.

Creating a buffer separating industrial oil operations from healthcare facilities, day care centers, schools, parks and homes is just common sense.

Devastating Impact On Children’s Health

The continued operation of these toxic oil drilling facilities destroys communities and poisons future generations. Kids are one of the most vulnerable populations in the zones near these sites. 

There are nearly half a million children under 18 in California who live and learn within half a mile of oil and gas operations.

Here are some of the terrifying research results about the negative impacts toxic oil wells have on our youngest generations:

• Studies carried out in the last 10 years found that kids who grow up near oil and gas wells are two to four times more likely to get leukemia.

• Multiple studies across California and other states found that early exposure to oil and gas operations leads to health problems in newborn babies—such as birth defects, preterm births, and low birthweight. For example, a large, California-based study in 2020 funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found that pregnant people who lived within 0.62 miles of high-producing wells were 40% more likely to have low birth weight babies and 20% more likely to have babies who were small for their gestational age.
  
  
• Residents (including children) living near oil and gas wells are more likely to have reduced lung functions, with outcomes potentially worse than daily exposures to secondhand smoke, according to a 2021 study conducted in Los Angeles by researchers from University of Southern California and Occidental College. 

We need to protect the health of our children and our communities by stopping Big Oil from overturning the law Californians passed last year to keep toxic oil drilling away from health care facilities, schools, and homes. 

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