BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — This year's Hispanic Heritage Month theme is Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together, and one local environmental justice advocate is supporting people living near potential pollutants.
- Video shows Cesar Aguirre testing the oil well at Truxtun Park for methane leaks
- Cesar Aguirre, a community advocate, raises awareness about environmental violations in Bakersfield.
- Aguirre works with IVAN or Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods to connect local leaders and agencies with community members with concerns about environmental issues in their neighborhood.
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If you live in Kern County, seeing an oil well is not uncommon, but what you might not realize is these wells release a gas called methane, and one local community advocate works in low-income communities to make sure those gases don't reach unhealthy levels.
This mobile methane monitor tests the amount of methane gas being leaked in the community.
“Oh, there’s something here you smell that," Cesar Aguirre, a environmental justice advocate, said.
This is the moment Aguirre notices unusual methane levels at an oil well at Truxtun Park.
“Do you smell that? So, that’s a legal leak and I can show you what that looks like,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre shows 23ABC what that leak looks like on an infrared camera.
He works with IVAN, a resource that identifies environmental violations impacting local neighborhoods, to connect community members with local leaders and agencies who can address environmental concerns.
“Whether it’s a leak, some strange smells that might be coming from industry next door, we help connect regulators to community so that the folks that are actually supposed to be in our neighborhoods protecting us can actually hear from us and know what's going on,” he said
The American Lung Association reports low-income and Hispanic, Asian, and Black communities often face a higher exposure to pollutants.
It also names Bakersfieldas the worst in the nation for year round particle pollution and short-term particle pollution.
“If you look at the neighborhoods with a lot of farmworkers and a high percentage of Hispanics those tends to be the ones that don't have health care access. Those tend to be the ones with issues with drinking water or clean air,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre hopes to give those people at risk a voice.
He says he’s one of many in the community advocating for change who represent this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month theme Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together.
“I hope for community voices to be respected," Aguirre said. "I think if the quality of life for these community members was respected, we wouldn't be put in these sacrifice zones.”
If you live near an oil well and see or smell something suspicious, you can report ithere.
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