The neighbourhood of Wilmington, California is bordered by several large freeways, three oil refineries, two of the largest ports in the United States, and is peppered with active oil wells, each dipping into the third largest oil field in the contiguous U.S. Drilling sites sit next to houses and baseball fields. Almost every street has a view of the industry.

All of this industrialisation translates to significantly higher rates of asthma and cancers for its 50,000 residents, most of whom are Hispanic. The air quality shows that Wilmington has a pollution burden of 100, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency. That’s the highest level possible.

In Jan 2022, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to ban new oil wells and phase out existing ones, a move leaders in the nation’s second most populous city called essential for health reasons.

The residents have been coming together and standing up to fight for more curbs on the extraction of oil and gas, for cleaner and safer air. Alicia Rivera is one such person, a local organizer with Communities for a Better Environment, a California-based environmental justice group.