Chemical odor, kids' nosebleeds, few answers in South L.A. neighborhood

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At a town hall meeting for residents of a South Los Angeles neighborhood who say fumes from an oil field are making them sick, Thomas Florio suggests that air-quality samples should be taken inside local apartments. The meeting was moderated by South Coast Air Quality Management District officials and held at Mount St. Mary’s College. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Barry Wallerstein, executive director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, center, listens to South Los Angeles residents at a town hall meeting express concerns about fumes from a nearby oil field. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Nancy Halpern Ibrahim, executive director of Esperanza Community Housing Corp., speaks during a town hall meeting concerning fumes from a South Los Angeles oil field. She holds a model that she says depicts some of the symptoms, including headaches and nose bleeds, that people living near the field are experiencing. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Sabino Valencia cleans son Jonathan’s face after the boy had a nosebleed at their University Park home. Valencia is planning to move his family away from the neighborhood where he has lived for 22 years because two of his five children have nosebleeds nearly every day, and he believes the area is no longer a healthful place to live. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Brenda Valensia, 7, left, and her brother Steven, 5, watch a movie in their parents’ bedroom in University Park. It is one of a growing number of communities with concerns about newly invigorated wells. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Teresa Mendoza mixes Kool-Aid for son Jonathan Valencia, 2 1/2, as Sabino Valencia, 36, helps son Steven, 5, with his homework at their University Park home. The couple say their boys have frequent nosebleeds. They’re in the process of seeking medical tests to find out why. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Monic Uriarte, 55, right, speaks with Geronimo Duenez in the University Park area of South Los Angeles. Uriarte is going door to door handing out fliers to residents to bring attention to the air quality in their neighborhood. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Jonathan Valencia, age 2 1/2, plays in his home in the University Park neighborhood. Later that evening, Jonathan had a bloody nose. His brother Steven and the boys’ parents state their two sons have nosebleeds daily. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Residents were asked to sign their names on paper next to Styrofoam heads representing the various symptoms they were experiencing in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Maria Bejarano, 51, signs her friends’ names on paper next to Styrofoam heads representing the symptoms they were experiencing in the University Park neighborhood. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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About 40 members of the community gather in front of Monic Uriarte’s building in the University Park neighborhood. In what they called an “action,” they hung a banner that read “People Not Pozos” (“People Not Wells”) and spoke about the air quality in their community. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Paul Caballero, left, and Jose Enriquez, center, air quality inspectors with the AQMD, speak with Monic Uriarte in front of her building in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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This Allenco Energy Inc. facility is concealed behind a 12-foot-high, ivy-covered wall. Between 2009 and 2010, Allenco increased oil production here from 4,178 barrels to 21,239, according to the state Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Monic Uriarte, 55, waters flowers outside her apartment in University Park. She says she began having recurring headaches and bouts of dizziness about three years ago and her daughter started suffering nosebleeds and respiratory ailments. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

By Louis Sahagun

Sept. 21, 2013 12 PM PT

Monic Uriarte says she began having headaches and bouts of dizziness three years ago, about the time she and her neighbors began smelling a chemical odor on the streets and in their homes.

Then Uriarte’s 9-year-old daughter and other children in the University Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles began suffering from recurring nosebleeds and respiratory ailments.

After a little sleuthing, Uriarte and others traced the smell to property shielded from the neighborhood by a 12-foot-high, ivy-covered wall. Behind it, on land leased from the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Allenco Energy Inc. had ramped up production from an oil field by more than 400% — from 4,178 barrels in 2009 to 21,239 in 2010, according to the state Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources.

Residents of the low-income community complained to state air quality officials 251 times over the next three years — up from just eight complaints from University Park in 2008-09. The South Coast Air Quality Management District responded by issuing 15 citations against Allenco for foul odors.

The district insists that based on its air sampling, the odors are harmless and pose no health risk. Instead, the issue “boils down to incompatible zoning decisions,” said Mohsen Nazemi, the district’s deputy field officer for engineering and compliance.

James Dahlgren, a toxicology expert and former assistant professor of clinical medicine at UCLA, does not agree. Dahlgren is investigating the complaints of illness on behalf of the Esperanza Community Housing Corp., which uses public and private funds to build affordable housing projects in the University Park area.

Dahlgren said the odors cannot be dismissed as harmless. “If you can smell it, it’s not safe,” he said. “These people are experiencing symptoms.”

Allenco refused to comment about its operation.

University Park is not alone in its concerns about living near newly invigorated wells. High prices for crude oil and new extraction technologies are driving a revival of urban oil fields across Southern California. Some neighborhoods are pushing back.

In Baldwin Hills, residents near the Inglewood Oil Field want to know if structural damage to their homes was caused by drilling. In Culver City, a venting of fumes over homes triggered a class-action lawsuit. In Whittier, residents are fighting plans to resume oil production on land set aside as a nature sanctuary.

“We’re seeing people beginning to demand more action from regulatory agencies and industry when it comes to their health and safety,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros, general counsel with the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “They’re tired of being told that everything is fine.”

The Allenco site is about half a mile north of the USC campus, surrounded by affordable housing projects and schools, including the Doheny Campus of Mount St. Mary’s College. The site was given to the archdiocese in the 1950s by descendants of Edward L. Doheny, one of Los Angeles’ early oil barons.

Today, Allenco’s operations are kept behind brick walls, shaded by oak trees and fringed with manicured lawns.

U.S. Energy Department records show that all 21 wells at the site had been idled in the 1990s because of low oil prices and calcification. As part of a project cosponsored by the Energy Department, hydrochloric and phosphoric acid was used to unplug five of the wells in 2005. California records show that seven to 10 wells are now active.

Signs on gates at the site provide emergency telephone numbers but no information about the nature of the facility. Behind the walls, the roughly two-acre site bristles with pipes, tanks and gauges. The pumps are beneath the surface.

A sign inside the walls warns: “Danger: H2S. Poisonous Gas.” No such signs are posted outside the site, which is a few yards from schools and homes.

H2S is hydrogen sulfide, a colorless, flammable gas that occurs naturally in petroleum and natural gas. Exposure to it triggers symptoms consistent with some of the complaints from the neighborhood. Repeated exposure can cause severe eye and respiratory irritation, headache, dizziness and vomiting, according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the air quality management district, said the agency has taken three air samples at the Allenco site and in the surrounding neighborhood. The samples, all from 2011, showed extremely low levels of H2S, and low levels of other noxious gases such as carbonyl sulfide.

However, a sample taken from a wastewater tank discharge line on Aug. 29, 2011, detected levels of hydrocarbons from volatile petroleum products that were 10,000 times higher than ambient levels, according to air quality district lab reports. Although some hydrocarbons are toxic, the analyses did not identify the hydrocarbons in the sample or determine how long they had been leaking into the air.

Separately in 2011, the air district ordered Allenco to pay to move Mount St. Mary’s College air-conditioning intake vents that were near the oil site. Students and faculty had complained that foul odors from the vents lingered for hours in classrooms.

The air district did not notify the neighborhood about the change because the odors “were never considered a health threat (i.e. one that could cause permanent harm),” Atwood said in a written statement.

“Foul odors can be extremely objectionable, cause symptoms such as headaches and nausea and significantly impact residents’ quality of life, especially if they are present on an ongoing basis,” Atwood wrote. “That’s why SCAQMD takes complaints of foul odors seriously.”

The executive director of the air quality management district, Barry Wallerstein, ventured to the Allenco site last week for a brief visit and a personal sniff test.

“I was there for about 20 minutes and I had a hard time detecting anything in the air,” Wallerstein said. Nonetheless, he added, “I’m going to ask our staff to take more air samples. I am also going to set up and attend a community meeting.”

As concerns mount, some residents have decided to move away. Sabino Valencia, a 37-year-old machinist, has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years but doesn’t think it’s safe anymore for his five children. Two of them have nosebleeds nearly every day, he said.

“My doctor says my sons’ nosebleeds may be happening because we live across the street from that oil field,” Valencia said. “We have friends around here whose children also suffer from nosebleeds.”

On a recent Wednesday night as the family was preparing for bed, Sabino’s 21/2–year-old son Jonathan had a nosebleed that dripped on the living room floor.

Uriarte’s daughter, now 12, also still suffers from nosebleeds.

“Something is wrong in our neighborhood,” Uriarte said. “We want answers.”

louis.sahagun@latimes.com