We’re being mugged.

We are affected. What could be more valuable than our health? (Alina Evans, Neon Tommy)

Someone is attacking us, but they’re doing it slowly and legally, hoping we won’t notice. It is hard to defend ourselves when the threat is imperceptible. Just getting by in today’s times takes priority over most types of advocacy and action—especially regarding issues that do not seem to affect our individual lives. We tend to be complacent when we don’t immediately recognize the danger. 

Carcinogenic chemicals are being injected into the ground all around us, as near as four blocks from USC and surrounding neighborhoods, endangering all students and residents.

This poisonous concoction results from fracking and acidizing operations (toxic processes used in the extraction of oil and natural gas). Other U.S. communities that have been subjected to this process report exploding wells, sink water unfit for consumption, animal death and high rates of cancer in humans.

I am both a resident of this community and a student at USC. I spent part of last year working as an intern on a campaign to raise awareness about fracking in California. I had a hazy understanding about the work I was assigned. Even after interviewing people who were suffering from severe physical ailments related to fracking, I never suspected that I would be affected personally. Having never seen a fracking rig, I had an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude. That changed when I moved here a few months ago and discovered that my apartment, roommates and neighbors are 50 feet from a drilling operation. The irony is killing me.                  

Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas Company is acidizing wells within sight of USC’s main campus. Acidizing is an extraction technique similar to fracking – instead of fracturing the underground rock to extract oil trapped in tiny cracks, acidizing uses high concentrations of hydrofluoric acid and other chemicals to dissolve rock around the oil. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, hydrofluoric acid is one of the most hazardous industrial chemicals. It can damage lungs without being immediately painful. If absorbed through the skin in even minute amounts, it may cause death.

The acidizing site is located at 1349-1375 Jefferson Blvd., between Budlong Ave. and Van Buren Place. Due to the high cement wall that surrounds the site, many people are unaware of the drilling—despite the incessant pounding noise and signs with disclaimers such as “Chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer… have been found in and around this facility.”

I live upstairs in the building next to the site, and can see everything that takes place behind the wall. An elementary school also borders the site. Trucks transport toxic chemicals in and out. The acrid smell of oil permeates the air. Emissions detrimental to the health of elementary school children, nearby residents and university students are not regulated. 

Most of the families that live around the site accept it as something they have to live with. However, that’s an incorrect assumption. Freeport-McMoRan is petitioning to drill 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This kind of disruptive and hazardous operation requires notifying the public, which the company has failed to do. Not a single resident in the area received a notice for a public hearing scheduled for September 24th. 

After contacting the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, I was told the hearing had been canceled because of an “oversight” by the oil company. Another hearing is being scheduled.

Freeport-McMoRan’s operations have brought toxic chemicals, foul odors, obnoxious noise and light pollution into our living rooms, kitchens and children’s lives. USC is home to close to 40,000 students, with tens of thousands more people living in surrounding neighborhoods. Most of us are unaware that we are drinking and breathing compromised water and air.

I am urging everyone—residents, students, workers who live elsewhere—to refuse to allow oil companies to drill in inhabited areas. We all are affected. What is more valuable than our health?

United, we can protect ourselves.

If you are interested in attending the public hearing or getting involved with CALPIRG’s “Students Against Fracking” Campaign, please contact Contributor Alina Evans here.