Los Angeles weighs phasing out oil and gas drilling

The University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles has a lot in common with urban areas across the U.S.: A dense population with lots of businesses and housing. A cluster of car dealerships. A row of restaurants. Schools and a community center.

But nestled in the predominantly Latino community is something rarely found in urban areas outside California: an oil field.

Pat Diaz, a 65-year old activist and University Park resident who grew up near a busy intersection, has felt the presence of the field since she was a child.

She remembers the basement of her family home that she now owns smelled like tar and her mother used to get spontaneous nosebleeds and persistent headaches.

When Diaz moved back to the neighborhood as an adult in 2009, she says she developed a chronic cough and lost her sense of taste. After comparing notes with neighbors in 2011, she realized such ailments were a widespread problem that residents blame on living near oil fields most recently operated by AllenCo Energy.

“It has been the bane of my existence since I was young,” she said.

After a decade of complains from residents like Diaz, the Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote as soon as next week on a measure that would ban new oil and gas wells in the nation's second most populous city and phase out existing wells over a five-year period.

HUNDREDS OF WELLS

The AllenCo Energy oil wells there are just a few among hundreds located in Los Angeles, which has the country's largest concentration of urban oil fields. There are approximately 1,000 active or idle wells in the city, according to a city controller's report citing data from the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.

Los Angeles doesn't have pumpjacks dotting a desolate desert like western Texas. Its oil and gas operations...