The American city has more than 5,200 oil and gas wells, mainly located in areas inhabited by ethnic and cultural minorities.
Le Monde with AFP
The Los Angeles City Council decided, Wednesday, January 26, unanimously to prohibit any new oil drilling on its territory, which already hosts thousands of oil wells, sometimes in the middle of residential neighborhoods or even to side of schools.
even if they have been part of the landscape and history of this Californian city for decades, the presence of these drilling is less and less accepted by the inhabitants and environmental activists, for which they present a health risk and important environmental.
The Municipal Council heard them and, in addition to the prohibition of new drilling it will implement, asked for a study to find the current wells to disappear in the next twenty years.
“Petroleum drilling in Los Angeles may have a raison d’être at the beginning of the XX e century but it certainly does not now have to have become a megalopoly”, Declared Councilor Paul Krekorian.
A link with respiratory and pulmonary disorders
The study requested by the city must in particular determine whether the oil companies operating these facilities have amortized their investment for each site. If this is the case, the municipality can act to obtain their dismantling and securing.
According to Los Angeles’s urban planning services, the city has more than 5,200 oil and gas wells. They are mainly located in areas inhabited by ethnic and cultural minorities, which are the first to suffer from the health impact, are the supporters of the closing of the wells.
A study published last year by the University of Southern California has established a link between the proximity of these wells and respiratory and pulmonary disorders, in some cases comparable to those of passive smoking.
Operators are opposed to this prohibition measure, saying that it will deprive the city of energy and fiscal resources. They also argue that this will make the United States more oil dependent from countries that they believe do not respect the same rules for the protection of the environment and human rights.
The County of Los Angeles has already pronounced last year for measures similar to those that the city has just taken.