Extreme air pollution choking Wilmington, California

[0:00]Wilmington, California is surrounded by pollution. you're getting all that smoke right in you and all those gases. Two major freeways, two of the country's busiest ports and five oil refineries. We are what makes everything in our city go. The air quality here is not great. Sometimes it's even ashy, like you can see it. And you could sometimes you could smell like like like sort of like rotten eggs. Of course, air quality is pretty poor in general in LA, the car capital of the United States. But the air here in Wilmington is particularly bad, with the pollution burden sitting at 100, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency. You imagine a scale where zero is fantastic air quality, 100 is terrible. Here in this neighborhood, it's as bad as it gets. Wilmington is home to the third largest oil field in the US. Pumps sit next to houses, drilling sites, shadowing little league baseball fields. Almost every street has a view of the industry. We see it, but we also can't smell it sometimes because we're very desensitized. And for residents, old and young, it's a way of life. when it's really hot, we usually just stay inside because it gets, like the smell gets really, really bad. So, yeah, in the summer, we do tend to stay like inside a lot because of it. I live close to like the drilling site. Um, sometimes when there's drilling like particles come down, and so, um, we close the doors just to get rid of the smoke stuff like that and just, you know, um, to keep I guess the air in our house up cleaner. Los Angeles and the nearby city of Long Beach have the worst ozone pollution in the country. That's according to a report last year from the American Lung Association, and Wilmington's asthma and cancer rates are said to be among the highest in the US. A lot of folks, um, maybe feel like it's a coincidence that all of the kids and the family have eye problems, watery eyes, scratchy throats, bloody noses. Uh, maybe folks feel that it's, um, hereditary, right? But what we really try teaching our community members is that these symptoms that you're feeling, they are really just what's happening because of these emissions that you're dealing with on a daily basis. California is tackling the problem by extending its cap and trade program, which limits greenhouse gas emissions from industrial companies. and passing a bill called AB617, which involves monitoring air quality in high risk communities. The Western States Petroleum Association, which represents some of Wilmington's oil companies, told CGTN, WSPA supports climate programs like cap and trade and air quality monitoring programs like AB617 because they'll have a profound impact on social justice, on the environment, on our shared prosperity in the communities we serve, and on our overall health and well-being. When it comes to where we want to see this relationship with industry go, we want it to go into a place where it's healthy. And so the hope is that the air quality will get better here. Question is, how long will it take? Phil Level CGTN, Wilmington, California.