But while Big Oil reaps big profits, Californians pay the price in air pollution, health problems, water contamination and oil spills. And then we get to pay all over again at the pump.
Big Oil tries to sell oil production as some fabulous job-creating machine with no downside.
CA’s meth(ane) Problem: Find out more with our series of videos.
#BadNeighbors: What’s it like to live next door to oil wells? Our video series explains.
Fracking, the toxic process of extracting oil or gas by blasting water and industrial chemicals underground, threatens California’s water, air, food, health, wildlife, climate, and economy. Yet oil companies want to expand the practice.
71% of oil produced in California comes from one place: Kern County.
Oil operations in Kern County waste 80 billion gallons of water each year. That’s enough to keep a half-million homes supplied with water. If it were clean. Which thanks to the oil industry, it isn’t.
In exchange, the people of Kern County get some of the worst air quality in the nation.
We know the oil industry doesn’t try to spill oil. It’s bad public relations. Which means we can
chalk all those oil spills up to incompetence.
Take the Santa Barbara oil spill that sent over 100,000 gallons of crude sloshing along California’s coast in May 2015, closing beaches and killing birds and marine mammals.
The company whose pipeline ruptured has a history of this kind of thing. In fact, it had to pay $40 million to settle with the EPA over 10 spills in four states.
Shining a spotlight on refineries throughout the United States and Canada. Created by Oil Change International.
The statewide coalition to ban fracking in California
A factsheet overview of what’s really going on with oil and gas injection wells. Put together by Clean Water Action.
The website of the Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources, the state division that oversees drilling, operation, maintenance, and abandonment of oil wells.
Customizable, data-driven maps outlining all oil and gas activity in the golden state
A resource on illegal wastewater dumping by the oil and gas industry