This is the first installment in our new series, The Power of Moms: Stories of Intergenerational Influence and Climate Legacy.
When Monic Uriarte arrived in the United States from Mexico in 1991, her goal was to keep herself and her family safe from the encroaching violence of the drug cartels that had taken over her community of Sinaloa. “Narco trafficking is the order of the day there,” said Uriarte, who chose Southern California to settle in “with two little kids and a suitcase full of dreams.”
To make ends meet, Uriarte sold everything from oranges to pots and pans door-to-door. In Mexico, she had been a schoolteacher but wasn’t able to transfer her credentials to the United States. Eventually, she became a community health worker at the nonprofit Esperanza Community Housing Corporation, a local advocacy group focused on improving housing, economic development, and environmental justice in South Central Los Angeles. The 59-year-old now has four children, and the youngest, Nalleli Cobo, 22, has put the family on the map as an environmental activist.
On a recent Zoom call, the mother and daughter pair finished each other’s sentences in English and Spanish. Their mutual admiration was palpable, their smiles toward each other warm as they discussed the long battle they’ve endured as a family. The two have been an unlikely environmental justice team since 2010, the year Cobo first got sick from living near an active neighborhood oil well. At nine years old, she began having nosebleeds, heart palpitations, and headaches. “My daughter’s health was deteriorating,” Uriarte said, describing rushed trips to the local emergency room, where doctors offered little explanation for what was causing Cobo’s sickness.
And it wasn’t just Nalleli. Uriarte was diagnosed with asthma around the same time, at age 40. Cobo’s grandmother, 80, who also lived with them in their affordable housing apartment, would follow. When Uriarte began talking to other mothers in the building, she realized they were not alone. The mothers also had illnesses and began meeting after their day jobs to talk about the concerns they had, especially about their children’s health. “We didn’t consider it organizing at first,” Uriarte said of the evening meetings. “We just wanted to know what was happening and how we could get help.”
All the while, Cobo was watching her mother, learning how to gather people around an issue. “I remember how my mom would talk to parents and ask them how their children were doing,” said Cobo. “I’d be left talking to their kids and asking them, ‘How’s your asthma?’”
Soon, the group realized the oil well had been emitting dangerous fumes and sickening residents. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the oil industry is the largest industrial source of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, which contribute to ozone pollution. Exposure to ozone pollution is linked to a wide range of health effects, including asthma. VOCs at oil operations can also include pollutants known or suspected of causing cancer.
Cobo began to repeat her mother’s talking points about the dangers of living so close to an active oil site to anyone who would listen. As Cobo’s health problems intensified, Uriarte encouraged her daughter to share her story more broadly, first at meetings with the local environmental justice group they cofounded, People Not Pozos, then more broadly in interviews with the media. “Nalleli has always had a strong sense of justice,” Uriarte said. “A nine-year-old girl has the right to be heard.”
One thing mother and daughter learned was that for the well to function, workers had to open and close valves to control the pressure of the oil. The anxiety of wondering whether the valves would be managed properly so that the well wouldn’t explode or emit harmful fumes affected Cobo every day, she said. “You’re literally living on a bomb.”
When a cardiologist finally suggested that Uriarte move her family out of the community to protect their health, she refused. “That wasn’t an option for us,” Uriarte said, citing financial limitations. She also didn’t think it was morally right to leave her home when it would mean that another family would move in and get sick.
Instead, the mothers in the building began calling the South Coast Air Quality Management District—the agency that regulates stationary sources of air pollution in Los Angeles—to complain. Initially, their calls went unanswered. So they began a more coordinated effort where they kept detailed records of who they called, when they were called, and what the outcome was. After filing more than 350 complaints, inspectors finally arrived on the scene, but it would still take years and more organizing before the well was finally closed. During that time, Nalleli’s health worsened. When she was 19, she was diagnosed with cancer and had multiple surgeries, culminating in the removal of her reproductive organs.
But Cobo, Uriarte, and their fellow activists had not worked in vain. In 2020, state regulators ordered the permanent closure of the AllenCo well, which was the cause of the community’s health crisis. Executives from AllenCo also faced criminal charges for their failure to properly shut down the noxious site.
The fight for clean air is not over in California. In 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 1137, a bill prohibiting new wells and mandating a 3,200 foot buffer zone between wells and residential buildings, school buildings, and healthcare facilities. According to data from FracTracker Alliance, more than 3,000 healthcare facilities, schools, and childcare centers “are located within 3,200 feet of operational oil and gas wells in California.” A 2021 study from the University of Southern California found that about a third of Los Angeles County residents live within a mile of an active drilling site, the majority of them people of color.
This was a short-lived victory; oil industry representatives filed a referendum halting the bill’s progress. In an interview with Inside Climate News, State Senator Lena Gonzalez, who co-authored the bill, vowed to continue the fight. “Regardless [of] if the referendum passes in 2024 or not, we will continue to apply more regulations on gas and oil industries and other polluting industries,” Gonzalez said.
Cobo and Uriarte have already begun phone banking to drum up support for passing SB 1137 this year. The pair remain steadfast in their commitment to fighting climate justice as an intergenerational issue. “It’s not going to be solely Gen Z to solve the climate crisis and it’s not going to be solely Baby Boomers,” Cobo, who is in remission from cancer, said. “It’s going to be humanity solving the climate crisis. Our elders have so much wisdom and so much knowledge to share. They deserve the space and the time to be heard.”