(See pdf below)
Thundering disappointment, if not disbelief, is expected to sweep across the room at tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting of the Community Advisory Panel when results are tallied from a broad survey of oil drilling’s effect on residents within a mile of the Inglewood Oil Field.
In recent months, scores of hyper anti-fracking protestors have asserted that the health and safety of neighboring families not only are lethally threatened, undeniable results already are showing declines in health.
Wrong, according to the 2011 Inglewood Oil Field Communities’ Survey, which will officially be released at the meeting in the Community Room of Kenny Hahn State Park.
“The conclusion of the survey is that they cannot say for sure whether the oil field contributes to health problems in the area,” John Kuechle, an original member of CAP, said this afternoon.
It is not possible to make a “reliable” link between “health outcomes” and drilling, by Plains Exploration & Production Co., PXP, in the thousand-acre oil field, in the words of the survey, which also says:
“These analyses cannot confirm whether exposures to chemicals from oil drilling activities at the Inglewood Oil Field directly affect health outcomes among individuals living nearby. At the outset, community representatives were informed that the survey could not determine causal relationships between the Inglewood Oil Field and reported illness for several reasons. First, the survey cannot determine causation because it cannot link specific toxic exposures from the oil field to health effects. Second, even if exposures were known, survey data from local areas tend to be limited by small sample sizes. These analyses can detect large differences in risk, but are not able to reliably detect small increases. Third, although some conditions (e.g., asthma) do occur often enough to detect a large excess risk, the study design is not appropriate to attribute the increase to the oil field rather than the many other possible causes. Due to these limitations, careful monitoring of the oil field operations to ensure compliance with regulations and standards is the best way to assure the safety of the communities.”
Mr. Kuechle said that “while there are health problems in the area, there is nothing about the oil field they can point to (for caustion). It could just as well be the result of the freeways or any of the other unhealthful aspects of living in Southern California.”
What is the message of the survey? Mr. Kuechle was asked.
“It tells me (the survey) is a big waste of time. We are never going to be able to figure it out.
“When (consultant) Jon Pierson came out with his first draft of the environmental impact report, he said that the science is just not good enough. “Competing challenges to living a healthy life in Southern California are so great that we aren’t going to be able to tell whether health problems are coming from the oil field.
“As time goes on, I believe this is being proven – it may be a problem or it may not. We never are going to know because we have so many other problems in Southern California.”
Furthermore, Mr.Kuechle said, “the people who wrote the Executive Summary report were somewhat politically tone deaf. I don’t disagree with their conclusion. I believe, though, they needed to phrase their findings a little more subtly so as not to arouse some people.”
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