“My father – an avid softball player – stopped playing. He didn’t feel strong enough to get up and swing the bat. But he didn’t believe anything bad would happen because he thought that SoCalGas wouldn’t lie and the government wouldn’t allow it. He insisted on staying in our home, less than a mile from the blown out well. I wish I had done more to get him out. He contracted kidney cancer in 2016. We had his blood tested with Dr. Jeffrey Nordella, who conducted a health study of residents, and found it contained many dangerous chemicals –including benzene, formaldehyde, and styrene. He died in 2017. My neighbor told me that the lady that I bought my house from died from brain cancer. Two more neighbors on the block have also died from brain cancer. My son and husband have had nosebleeds since moving up here, and they had them daily during the blowout.”
— DEIRDRE KOENIG BOLONA, 61