The Oil Amongst Us
Low income communities have a much greater chance of being next to a toxic site like the massive oil refineries in Wilmington near San Pedro, but nestled in the hills above the high end homes of LA’s Westside side is the Inglewood Oil Field, one of the largest urban oil fields in the country. San Joaquin Valley farmers find their crops and livestock competing for space with pumpjacks and fracking sites, and even our precious coastline cannot escape the blight of oil derricks and the potential leaks and devastation they can reap.
Many of us live amongst major fossil fuel production and extraction sites, some may not even know it, while others simply get used to it and hope for the best, but its impact and health risks on our lives and environment is not going away anytime soon.
Through my work with some local environmental organizations I became both fascinated and appalled by the proximity of major fossil fuel facilities to nearby residential and agricultural communities, and began documenting this frightening juxtaposition around 2008. These photos were taken in mostly LA and Orange Counties as well as Kern County in the San Joaquin Valley, all home to major oil shale deposits and people.
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