(Los Angeles residents and anti-fracking supporters celebrate the passing of the City of Los Angeles Fracking Moratorium Friday morning/Zoe Ward)

Los Angeles residents filled the seats of the City Council chamber as Councilmen Jose Huizar, Paul Koretz, and Mike Bonin introduced a proposal that asked city officials to draft a law banning fracking, acidizing and other dangerous drilling techniques.

“It is very important that the city of Los Angeles continues its tradition of leadership in standing up and saying ‘we, as the largest city in Los Angeles County, do not believe that fracking is safe and we want a moratorium on this until it can be regulated and until safety can be proven,” Bonin said.

Members of the council have been working to suspend fracking practices in the city for months because of the lack of regulation and because of the various hazards involved with the drilling, including increased earthquakes and wasting millions of gallons of clean water.

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“Fracking related earthquakes are taking place all over the country in states that normally don’t have earthquakes. And what are we doing? We’re bringing something that causes earthquakes to one of the most earthquake prone places on the face of the earth. That doesn’t make sense,” Koretz said.

Koretz told the council that the chemicals used in the fracking process, many of which are unknown to the public, are generating gallons of toxic waste and have the potential to contaminate ground water.

“We’re using hundreds of toxic chemicals that we aren’t even allowed to know about and creating a chemical soup of tremendous danger,” Koretz said.

Bonin highlighted the concerns for public health, and said that residents have complained of nosebleeds, headaches, and chemical smells in neighborhoods near drilling sites.

“It is absolutely essential for us to step in and say no to this in our neighborhoods and make sure we do everything to protect the people who live, and work, and play here in the city of Los Angeles,” Bonin said.

The audience members, many sporting “Ban Fracking” stickers and signs, stood and cheered after the ten present councilmembers voted unanimously to pass the moratorium.

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“We need strong federal and state regulation on fracking because the chemicals used are so dangerous that drilling companies won’t even tell the public what they are, so I’m glad we’re taking a stand against it and a stand for our safety,” Michael Hubman, a Los Angeles resident, said.

Fracking, or the hydraulic fracturing of rock using water and a variety of chemicals, has been implemented in the Inglewood Oil Field. The field is one of the largest urban oil fields in the United States and over one million Los Angeles residents live in the area directly surrounding it.

The passage of this motion is the first step to permanently ban fracking in Los Angeles, and to set an anti-fracking precedent for the rest of the county, state, and country.

“It’s time to stop this crazy practice, to stop the insanity, and to protect our health and safety,” Koretz said.