Ventura County finally reined in the dangerous oil and gas industry yesterday after more than a century of acting with impunity. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to approve a plan that would begin the exit of gas from homes and businesses and oil wells within 1500-feet of homes and 2500-feet of schools. The plan also includes a proposal to consider 2500-foot setback for all sensitive land sites by 2022 as a future potential amendment.
More than 100 Ventura County members and supporters of the Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter wrote to the Board of Supervisors. We joined allies Food and Water Action, Climate First: Replacing Oil & Gas (CFROG) and the Last Chance Alliance in the fight.
The Board’s deciding factor was our health and environment. It has long been known that living within 2,500 feet of an oil well was dangerous to our communities, especially our children, mothers and seniors. Oil and gas wells expose neighboring communities to dozens of known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors like benzene, formaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide, in addition to particulate matter. These chemicals and emissions have proven records of toxicity and are known to cause health problems ranging from nosebleeds to chronic headaches, increased risks of asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and increased risk of cancer and premature death. Two recent studies released earlier this year by the University of CA and Stanford University experts confirmed that living near oil wells also has significant adverse effects on pregnant mothers and newborn babies in California.
This is why environmental and health advocates, including the Sierra Club, have been calling on regulators to enact 2500-ft human health and safety buffers between oil production operations and sensitive sites like homes, schools, hospitals, parks, playgrounds, businesses and faith institutions. About half a mile, 2500-ft is the minimum safe distance that scientific experts recommend between fossil fuel infrastructure and community exposure.
In Ventura County, more than 8,000 residents live within 2,500 feet of an oil well, of which 60% are Latinx. We are encouraged by the leadership of Ventura County Supervisors to enact a 2500-foot setback from schools and 1500-foot setback from homes in their General Plan. Special thanks to Supervisor Bennett for including the program to have the county consider whether a 2500-ft setback distance should be considered from all sensitive land uses by 2022. We will continue to advocate for 2500-foot setback protections for all of our community members where they live, learn, work, worship, and play.
The oil industry has been in decline in Ventura County for decades. This year, the price of oil collapsed due to financial mismanagement and the coronavirus forcing the state’s largest oil company, California Resources Corporation, to declare bankruptcy. In a further sign of the times, oil giant Exxon was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average on the same day Ventura County-based drugmaker Amgen was added. In order to keep oil workers fully-employed, the County has established a retraining program to transition to clean energy work. Last year, California had five times as many clean energy jobs than fossil fuel jobs.
In addition to the oil setbacks, Ventura's adopted General Plan update also includes implementing a building code by 2023 that will create cleaner, healthier new buildings without gas. Oil’s fossil fuel cousin, fracked gas, still powers too much of California's heating and appliances. There too, personal health has been glossed over – whether it be the carcinogens released in a gas-range or the cumulative burning and leaking outside. The combustion of gas inside our homes produces harmful indoor air pollution, specifically nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and ultrafine particles. These odorless and undetectable gas combustion pollutants can cause respiratory diseases, as well as more serious conditions, including death.
A recent study by the UCLA School of Public Health found that when stove and oven are used simultaneously for an hour, acute exposures to nitrogen oxide (NO2) exceeds national and California-based ambient air quality thresholds more than 90% of the time.
Under a 2018 scenario where all residential gas appliances were transitioned to clean-energy electric appliances, UCLA found that the reduction of secondary nitrate fine particulate matter (PM2.5) [from nitrogen oxides (NOX)] and primary PM2.5 would result in 354 fewer deaths, and 596 and 304 fewer cases of acute and chronic bronchitis, respectively saving more than $3.5 billion in monetized health benefits in a year. Ventura County addressed these health concerns by acknowledging the health dangers associated with gas in homes and acted accordingly, by including in the general plan a requirement that all new construction in the county be built using all electric appliances.
California missed the all-electric push of the 1950s and 60s that now dominates many states, but new technology like heat pumps and precision induction stoves made it easier and cheaper to catch up. More than 30 cities and counties have already adopted all-electric new building reach codes with more on the way. The good news is that building electrification comes with other benefits aside from just making our buildings cleaner and more healthy.
Building all-electric buildings cuts costs. A recent analysis by the Statewide Utility Codes and Standards Team found that building all-electric reduced construction costs on average $5,000 for single-family homes and over $2,000 per unit in a multi-family building.
A world powered by renewables and stored by batteries is safer, cheaper, and healthier for our communities and the climate. Ventura County took an important step toward building decarbonization today and we are encouraged by the county's recognition that the health, climate, and housing affordability impacts of gas in homes and buildings have serious consequences and must be addressed with modern, healthy, and affordable electric solutions.
What Ventura County did today will not be the last step in this journey. The oil and gas industries will continue to fight every step of the way, if they are still in existence. But this important step forward was reached and just in the nick of time thanks to tireless advocacy by Ventura County activists.
-- Jonathan Ullman, Director, Los Padres Chapter