Study: Redlining tied to more oil, gas wells in urban areas

Minority neighborhoods where residents were long denied home loans have twice as many oil and gas wells as mostly white neighborhoods, according to a new study that suggests ongoing health risks in vulnerable communities are at least partly tied to historical structural racism.

Black and Latino residents have complained that they are disproportionately exposed to health risks — including heart and lung problems and premature births — from urban oil and gas wells, some located just a few dozen feet from homes and schools. Some studies have found hazardous chemicals near oil and gas operations at levels above what is considered safe.

But researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University wanted to determine if there was a connection to redlining — when Black and immigrant neighborhoods in the 1930s were shaded red on maps developed by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation. Residents in those areas often found it difficult to find homes anywhere else.

“These are critical questions,” said David J. X. Gonzalez, an epidemiologist at UC-Berkeley and one of the study's authors. “If we want to reduce health disparities, if we want environmental justice, these are the kinds of questions that we want to understand.”

Researchers compared the maps of 33 U.S. cities to records of oil and gas wells dating to the late 1800s. The maps graded neighborhoods A to D. Overall, redlined, or D-graded, neighborhoods not only had more wells before the maps were created, but many more wells were developed in those areas afterward, the researchers found.

The study was published last week in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.

Gonzalez, who grew up in a community with oil wells and a refinery, said many policies led to race- and class-based...