When the typically salty produced water seeps underground, DiGiulio said, it can dislodge arsenic in sediments, indirectly causing arsenic groundwater contamination.Ĭontamination of Arvin’s groundwater would have “devastating impacts on the local economy and water supplies,” the City Council noted in 2018, when it revised its 1960s-era oil and gas rules. Yet studies show that the oil industry’s longstanding practice of dumping its wastewater, known as produced water, into unlined pits contaminates groundwater, causing “profound geochemical changes in groundwater,” said Dominic DiGiulio, a senior research scientist with the nonprofit Physicians, Scientists and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy. The fact that regulators allow a polluting oil well next to her home has shaken her confidence in official assurances.Ĭentral Valley Water Board regulators conceded in a 2017 notice to oil operators that oil companies’ wastewater can contain contaminants, “ particularly arsenic,” that exceed safety standards, while simultaneously claiming that arsenic groundwater contamination is “unlikely.”
Martinez’s mother, for one, doesn’t trust that it’s safe. “And we know that these groups have historically been marginalized and their concerns not taken seriously.”Īrvin’s drinking water was contaminated for so long with such high levels of arsenic, found naturally in groundwater but also a byproduct of oil operations, that even though the water finally met safety standards last fall, most people won’t drink it. “We’re finding that people of color are disproportionately exposed to oil and gas wells and have suffered disproportionately,” he said. González suspects part of the reason relates to who’s affected. “Particularly in California, where millions live near oil and gas wells.” It’s surprising there hasn’t been much more research on the hazards of living near oil and gas operations, said David González, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley. People living near wells in other states have reported the same symptoms Martinez has struggled with most of her life, including nose, eye and throat irritation, severe headaches, fatigue and anemia. More than 2 million Californians, mostly poor people of color, live within a mile of an operating oil or gas well. “But I know there’s something wrong with me because, if not, I wouldn’t be feeling like this on a daily basis.” An oil well operates just a few hundred feet from Grow Academy, an elementary school in Arvin, California, where advocates have filmed methane and toxic air pollutants drifting toward the school. “It’s overwhelming because I keep going to all these doctor’s appointments since I was younger and they can’t tell me what’s wrong,” said Martinez. Her doctors suspect she may have an autoimmune disorder but won’t prescribe any medications until they settle on a diagnosis. She’s been seeing specialists since last fall, when her stomach problems and dizzy spells got worse.
Now 21, she no longer has nosebleeds, but suffers from dry eyes and headaches, fatigue and memory problems that made it even harder to study when her local university went virtual during the pandemic. She’s long had stomach trouble and bouts of anemia. Martinez lost count of how many times she woke up as a kid feeling something wet on her face, only to realize her nose was bleeding. People like Martinez have paid for that failure with their health. Meanwhile, environmental watchdogs armed with state-of-the-art imaging cameras routinely detect toxic emissions from neighborhood oil and gas wells and storage tanks, demonstrating the failure of state and regional regulators to keep communities safe. Oil and gas operations have been linked to a growing list of serious health consequences, from birth defects to cancer, while the industry’s wastewater pollutes the state’s dwindling groundwater reserves. Martinez personifies California’s failure to protect its residents from the harsh realities of living near fossil fuel extraction.
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