- My mom had to carry me in her arms, take me to the ER and she's a single mom.
We live in south L.A. in an affordable housing building and there did come a point where I couldn't go to the doctor anymore 'cause of the copayments.
I'd have to sit in my arms and we'd just cry together over my pain and the fact that we couldn't afford medical treatment for me.
My name is Nalleli Cobo, I'm 17 years old and I great up right across the street from an oil well which we happen to be right in front of.
While they ewre operating, my life was completely different.
I personally got really sick.
From body spasms, I got to the point where I couldn't walk to nose bleeds that I had to sleep horizontally 'cause I'd choke on my own blood at night.
I have asthma now, that's something I'm always gonna have o live with, I got heart palpitations and I had to use a heart monitor for several weeks and that wasn't just my reality but the reality for the rest of my community.
And unfortunately, so many other Angelenos.
About 580 thousand Angelenos live within a quarter of a mile or less to an active oil or gas well and that's need to change.
When drilling for oil, they use many different chemicals that damage not only our environment but our health as well.
I couldn't open the windows to my own home because I didn't wanna expose myself nor my family to those toxic chemicals in the air.
We had to call the southcoast Air Quality Management District whenever there was a smell.
There had to be nine different calls from different households in order for AQMD to send an inspector to come see what was going on in the well.
Those calls had to be made within two hours.
If not, there was no inspector.
The inspector would show up about two, three hours later and would ask you questions.
He or she would say, "Where exactly were you standing "when the smell hit you?" And he'd go there to that exact spot and if he couldn't smell anything, he wouldn't file a report.
When the inspectors would come, they would ask us,"Are you sure you just didn't leave the stove on?"
Or, "You know what, they're just cleaning, "they're keeping it up to date, you should be grateful "that they even care," but that wasn't happening nor was it the reality.
When Allen Co. was still operating, they would use other chemicals to try to hide the oil drilling smell.
They'd make my community smell like guava, citrus, chocolate, even chlorine sometimes.
Even with Allen Co. Masking the smells, that didn't take away my symptoms. The inspectors should have put our experience and our reality ahead of the oil industries.
My mom has always instilled in me that I needed to be an important variable in the community I belong to.
As soon as we noticed that we were being poisoned, I started going door to door knocking with my mom to let our neighbors know about meetings, let them know about city hall hearings.
We turned ourselves from victims to survivors and fighters.
We started a grassroots campaign with the help of Esperanza Community Housing called People Not Pozos which means people not wells.
The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about us which captured the attention of former U.S. senator, Barbara Boxer.
Because of our efforts, I am very proud to say Allen Co. has been temporarily shut down for four and a half years.
Allen Co.'s planning to resume operations but my community is fighting to not let that happen.
We're fighting to establish a 2500 health and safety buffer zone between oil extraction and sensitive land.
We're fighting to protect our health, our air, our environment and yours too.
If you care about people like me who are exposed to toxic emissions and oil wells because of where they live, you should get out to the polls and change that.
I'm still 17 so I can't vote but you can vote on my behalf.
Voting is one of the rights we have as American citizens but if you aren't a citizen, that shouldn't stop you.
You can still be extremely politically active and you can still encourage other people to pre-register or register to vote themselves.
Please go to vote this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXyh542bNhU
