BALDWIN HILLS — After considerable pressure from residents who are dissatisfied with what they saw as a rushed environmental impact report on oil fields here, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has allocated $155,000 for an immediate comprehensive health assessment of the area.

“This health assessment is being done in response to the concerns that were voiced by residents who live in the vicinity of the Baldwin Hills Oil Fields,” said Karly Katona, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ deputy for sustainability. “This will be a more comprehensive analysis that will allow us to look further at these issues and there will be three components to it.”

The survey, which will be conducted by the Field Research Corporation over the summer, will be directed to roughly 1,000 residents randomly identified from households living in eight zip codes within the Baldwin Hills area.

Neighborhoods such as Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Vista, Culver City, Crenshaw, Leimert Park, Ladera Heights, Inglewood, View Park and Windsor Hills, are surrounded by the two-square-mile site known as the Baldwin Hills Oil Field, the last largely undeveloped open area in South and West Los Angeles.

By way of 15-minute phone interviews — in both English and Spanish — residents will be asked questions that address quality of life issues, odors, noise, vibrations, and specific health conditions that have been reported by those living in the vicinity of the oil field.

The assessment will additionally look at three components: Mortality rates and patterns in the selected population based on death certificates provided by the Department of Public Health; cancer rates and patterns based on data gathered by the University of Southern California Cancer Surveillance Program; and data reported in a 2007 community survey, regarding self-reported illnesses such as asthma and other upper respiratory conditions.

The 2007 survey collected information about health status, health-related behaviors and access to and use of health care or preventive health services, and is the basis upon which the assessment will follow.

“This [upcoming] study responds to the Baldwin Hill community’s concerns over their health and safety. It will be an important step towards understanding and monitoring any health trends in that community,” said a statement by Ridley-Thomas, who in collaboration with the Department of Public Health are working with the communities to formulate questions for the survey. “In order to analyze the Baldwin Hills Community’s health concerns in a meaningful way, the community survey must use the same survey methods as those used to conduct the 2007 study.”

This, he noted, will allow the Department of Public Health to compare data for each survey and provide a baseline for evaluation of future health impacts.

But some residents and community organizations do not feel the assessment is inclusive enough.

“It seems as if it is just a PR puff piece because they do not want to try to determine any causality with this thing. If they are really concerned about the effects, air emissions, leaking wells, leaking tanks, or leaking fixtures, it should be more specific than this,” said Culver City resident and co-chair of the county’s public health committee Paul Ferazzi. “It is still being developed but it revolves around a 15 minute phone survey. The way I see, I don’t see how you could possibly get the kind of questions that you have to ask in that amount of time. It is just going to be a superficial thing.”

Windsor Hills resident Gary Gless, who is also co-chair of the county’s public health subcommittee, agreed that the study will not do much for the community and that the “true” questions needed for an assessment are more in depth.

A real comprehensive study, he said, would require agencies to go door-to-door and spend more than 15 minutes asking questions about health, odors and property damage. In addition, he believes it would require surveyors to test the residents’ soil and vacuum their homes to study the particulate matter they are breathing, then go back to the field to see if those same particles are in the soil or are being emitted from the drills. At that point, the particles can be analyzed to determine whether they have cancer-causing agents.

Community Health Councils, which has been at the forefront of advocating residents’ rights in the matter, is urging the county to work with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the water board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take a better look at air quality. In addition, they are calling for ground water and surface water testing, as well as soil testing.

The previous environmental impact report, said CHC Executive Director Lark Galloway-Gilliam was not localized and included areas near the LAX airport and I-10 freeway, which caused the organization and some residents to believe that the study was faulty in terms of getting a conclusive analysis of health impacts to those living in the direct vicinity of the oil field.

“There is some data but there was a lot missing,” added Galloway-Gilliam. “It relied on air quality information that is gathered around the airport versus actually on this field. Water testing and stuff didn’t really happen. … People want to know their exposure. There was a dissatisfaction in the depth of that study. There was no real surveying of people.”

According to Katona, the EIR did not reveal any significant health impacts to the communities surrounding the oil fields.

John Pierce, project manager with Marine Research Specialists who was hired by the county to prepare the EIR, contends that more than 100 soil samples were taken. The study, as well as another conducted by the South Coast AQMD a few years back of the entire L.A. Basin, found that “the level of health risk is pretty high, but the main driver is diesel particulate from mobile sources on highways and roads,” he said, estimating that health risks in the Baldwin Hills area “was less than 10.”

The Citizens Coalition for a Safe Community, a nonprofit formed to protect the environmental health and safety of citizens of Los Angeles County, conducted their own survey, which they say is much more in line with what residents have reported. Results from the 34-question survey showed that 62.9 percent of the residents have smelled odors coming from the oil field. Of those 30 percent either have cancer or have family members living with them who have cancer.

A map of the area also shows an overlay of where odors and cancer claims have been detected. According to it, those with cancer — lung, brain, bladder, breast, prostate and lymphoma — are also those who have smelled odors. Another set group claimed they suffer from upper respiratory illnesses — such as asthma and chronic bronchitis — cardiovascular disease and immune system disorders.

Despite this apparent coincidence, no party can be sure that the two are the result of oil drilling activity.

County officials say they expect that the study will only provide an overall view of the current health of the population, not conclusive information on the causes of reported disease and illness.

“Of course,” said Galloway-Gilliam, “scientists will tell you that there is no way to make a connection between the high rates of cancer, which we know we have, the high rates of heart disease, which we know we have, and drilling.”

And while this is understood by Baldwin Hills resident Irma Munoz, who believes that more in depth studies and tests could in fact determine if there is a correlation, “we deserve the right to know either way.”