Second in a series
Re “Oil Field Health Survey ‘Bogus,’ Says Activist Gless”
Gary Gless of the Citizens Coalition for a Safe Community came into last Thursday’s Community Advisory Panel meeting convinced the recent County health survey of oil field-adjacent residents was worthless. The 75-minute program at the meeting sealed his convictions.
“I believe the County did the survey to give the impression ‘we are actually doing something,’” Mr. Gless charged. “But they really haven’t. If you read what they said at the end, ‘Re-doing the survey won’t help us at all,’ that shows it was a pointless survey.”
The County, he maintains, possesses the technology to conduct a more sophisticated, useful survey than the “slapdash” showy effort he says they chose. “The numbers they produced in the so-called Inglewood Oil Field Health Survey have been diluted,” he claims, unworthy of further study.
Mr. Gless said flatly that County consultant Jon Pierson, a respected figure in numerous quarters, was utterly wrong when he asserted that contemporary science is insufficiently advanced to establish a certifiable link between the oil field and allegedly recurring health problems suffered by nearby families. He said a certain type of monitoring “can tell you exactly where the contaminants and types of particulates are coming off the oil field. It will give you the wind direction and the type of toxins there are.”
Swinging to his central point, Mr. Gless said “there are causal links you can have from oil field toxins to the community, too. Tests can be performed to show this.”
(Next: AB 972)
