Translated by David JX González.
More than 100,000 oil and gas wells in the western United States (US) are located in places that have been burned during wildfires in recent decades, according to a new study. About 3 million people live next to wells that could be threatened by wildfires that are increasingly likely due to climate change.
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said their analysis, published last week in the journal One Earthis the first to examine historical and projected wildfire threats to U.S. oil wells. Although the public health effects of fire-damaged wells are unclear, researchers said the study is a necessary step to understand the many potential dangers and help inform policy on future drilling.
“Most of California’s oil wells are currently in areas threatened by wildfires, and many people live in those areas because of the history of oil and gas development in this state,” said David JX González, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. “The same issues that have been with us historically are still with us, and it seems like they could give rise to new environmental justice issues that haven’t really been studied.”
Gonzalez, the study’s lead author, pointed to Los Angeles and Kern counties as populated areas where oil and gas are drilled and also at high risk of fires now or in the near future. In the past, oil and gas field fires unrelated to wildfires have caused explosions, and leaks from gas storage tanks in Los Angeles have led to explosions that damaged buildings. Near Bakersfield, dozens of wells have been found leaking natural gas, some at explosive levels.
Since 1984, nearly 350,000 people have lived within 1 kilometer of a well that was within an area burned in a fire, according to researchers. Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American people have faced disproportionately high exposure to those fire-affected wells, largely due to a few large wildfires in California, Texas and Oklahoma.
Currently, throughout the West, almost 3 million people live within 1 kilometer of a well that is in an area with a high risk of fire in the coming decades. Additionally, researchers predict that the number of oil wells in high-fire risk areas will almost double by the end of the century.
That means more wells will be drilled in more fire-risk areas.
“I don’t want to say that the findings are catastrophic but the impact is greater than we expected,” González said. “If we take all the results together, it starts to look like a problem that has not been taken into account in the past, but has been getting worse and will continue to get worse. “It is worrying, especially for people who live near leaking wells.”
Although the researchers do not intend to alarm, González said it is an example of the aggravating factors with health threats that are not well understood but potentially important.
González’s previous research has explored the effects of oil wells on public health with special attention to marginalized people who are disproportionately exposed to the wells. When a fire broke out in Colorado in 2021 near some oil wells, he and his colleagues wondered how often the wells were affected by fires and how often they might occur in the future.
“We were interested in the extent to which we should be concerned about the effects of forest fires in places where there were already oil wells,” explains González.
The research team examined maps of wildfires from 1984 to 2019 and analyzed oil well records. By matching drilling sites to burned areas and adding population data, the team calculated how many people lived near the affected wells.
Although the health effects of oil wells are increasingly understood, there are no research studies determining whether fires increase health risks. In densely populated areas where buildings burn in wildfires, oil and gas operations could complicate fire response efforts, Gonzalez said.
There is strong warning evidence. Infernos like the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California caused volatile organic compounds to leak from plastic pipes into the drinking water system.
There are many toxic chemicals already used in oil fields, González said. There has been no research into what happens when these chemicals combine into plumes of smoke that already pose serious health risks each year.
“We need additional protections to make sure that, as wildfires happen, the places and people near these industrial activities can be protected,” González said.
From a public health point of view, the creation of isolation zones between wells and residences, schools, and companies would be an effective intervention, González stated. Additionally, public land managers should consider the long-term dangers of permitting wells in fire-prone areas.
“With a problem that we know will only get worse as climate change progresses, we have the opportunity to take proactive measures to prevent future damage,” Gonzalez said.
