Every morning, I send my daughters off to college with a kiss on the cheek and a heavy heart. School is supposed to be a secure and supportive surroundings in which youngsters are in a position to learn without worrying about threats to their overall health. Sadly, this is not the situation in my hometown of Shafter, California.
California state laws have permitted oil companies to hydraulically fracture oil wells perilously shut to my daughters’ colleges, exposing them to harmful air harmful toxins and putting their health and safety at chance on a day-to-day basis.
Earlier this summertime, two weeks following California’s first-ever hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, regulations went into effect, my loved ones filed a lawsuit towards Governor Jerry Brown and California Oil and Gasoline Supervisor Steve Bohlen. We are difficult the laws for illegally discriminating towards college students of color by permitting wells that are disproportionately shut to the colleges they attend.
Fracking, is a approach utilised to extract oil from the ground that includes injecting a mixture of water, sand and hundreds of different chemicals into the ground at very substantial pressures to fracture the rock and release oil.
There are 45 fracked wells inside of a mile and a half of my daughter’s junior large college. At Sequoia Elementary College, which she attended for years, there are 3 separate fracked wells inside of a half-mile of the college, and one particular that is just 1,200 feet from the school.
Several college students at the college endure from asthma and serious, debilitating illnesses. What is creating this spike in well being difficulties in usually healthful children? Fracking. It exposes our kids to unsafe amounts of air harmful toxins that can result in a broad selection of significant well being issues, like asthma. College students at my daughter’s colleges were frequently forced to keep within for weeks at a time due to the fact of the noxious fumes from the fracking web sites. They think it’s strange when folks really do not get nosebleeds every day. For also numerous of California’s Latino public school students, this is standard.
Shortly right after fracking began near her school, my youngest daughter began to suffer from unexplainable epileptic attacks. We’ve taken her to many doctors and professionals, but no one has been able to tell us the genuine lead to of her sickness. As a result of these wellness issues, her life has been forever transformed. My daughter, a girl who loved sports activities and finding out, no longer plays outside. She fears for her health and safety every single day simply because of how shut fracking takes place to her college.
This is unacceptable for any Californian, but it is specifically disturbing given the truth that fracking overwhelmingly happens near to colleges that serve predominately Latino public college students, the vast majority of whom reside in communities currently overburdened by pollution and the resulting unfavorable wellness impacts. My very own town of Shafter is ranked in the best 10% of the most polluted communities in the state – our youngsters can’t afford exposure to these extra harmful toxins.
The young children of Shafter are not the only ones who endure from this injustice. A lot more than 60% of the 61,612 California youngsters who attend college within one particular mile of a stimulated effectively are Latino. Statewide, Latino college students are more than 18% much more probably to attend a college inside a mile and a half of a stimulated well than non-Latino students.
I’m fighting back and speaking up because this injustice can not stand. Oil firms need to not be in a position to endanger the health and safety of Latino kids across the state. My children’s training indicates almost everything to me.
It implies a opportunity at a vibrant, fulfilling and pleased future. It is their path to opportunities I never had. My daughters deserve to be able to go to college with out fearing for their wellness and security. They deserve perform outdoors with out the air they breathe poisoning them.
My household has faith that the courts will stand up for our children’s rights, and hold our state accountable for enabling this harmful activity to interfere with the top quality of their education.
There are 45 fracked wells inside of two miles of my daughter"s school | Rodrigo Romo
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