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Bronwyn Schweigerdt is a former Bakersfield resident, and a licensed marriage and family therapist living with her family in Sacramento.

Bronwyn Schweigerdt is a former Bakersfield resident, and a licensed marriage and family therapist living with her family in Sacramento.

Before I settled in Sacramento 24 years ago, I had moved from the beautiful Central Coast to, of all places, Bakersfield.

The best thing about California is the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Bakersfield is actually the closest major city to the Sierras, a mere 20 miles from the wildflower-covered foothills. If that surprises you, it’s likely due to the polluted air obscuring the mountains from view, most of the year. The pollutants, including volatile organic compounds such as benzene and formaldehyde, along with particulate matter, aren’t just impeding the vista, they’re also known teratogens — compounds known to cause malformation of an embryo, during pregnancy.

So, you could say, this Mountain Momma left Bakersfield to keep her unborn baby safe.

Just a few years after planting in Sacramento, I had my daughter. She was healthy, thank God. What makes Sacramento — another Central Valley city — so much more family-friendly? I’d say the county supervisors, for a start.

You could argue that Kern County has all those oil wells, leaking toxins into the air. Kern also has the concentrated animal feeding operations, otherwise known as “mega-dairies” of tens of thousands of clustered cattle. Sacramento does not. But that’s not where the culpability lies, given what we now know.

Even after the state of California recently enforced a new health buffer mandating all new oil wells to be at least 3,200 feet from residential activity, Kern County supervisors use a loophole to permit oil and gas drilling with no such buffer, near homes, schools and daycares, ignoring the scientific consensus. In other words, despite the proven dangers to children and the unborn, these representatives continue to favor the oil and gas industry, by allowing known teratogens to be continually air-born in stagnant, land-trapped, valley air.

There are more than 19 scientific studies linking oil and gas development with significantly increased risk of adverse birth outcomes, such as low birth weight and preterm births. Low birthweight babies often have a higher rate of respiratory diseases, difficulty fighting infections, developmental delays and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

In a recent report by CalMatters, titled “Oil and Babies Don’t Mix,” pregnant women in rural California who lived near active oil and gas wells were 40 percent more likely to give birth to low birthweight babies.

Mega-dairies, or CAFOs, also leach high levels of methane, ammonia, nitrogen oxides and VOCs that contribute to reproductive harm. County supervisors first allowed this type of industrial agriculture to replace the region’s family-run farms in the 1990s, when the newcomers were priced out of Los Angeles County. Dairies of a few hundred cows were displaced by those such as Borba, two side by side mega-dairies, each supporting 14,000 cows.

If that weren’t enough, OGD and CAFOs are also major contributors to another type of air pollution, known as particulate matter, which has been linked to autism in young children whose mothers were exposed to unhealthy levels during pregnancy. According to a study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, particulate matter exposure during pregnancy was “significantly and positively associated” with increased risk of all adverse birth outcomes.

This may explain why, several years ago, The Bakersfield Californian quoted Kern High School District’s Special Education manager, Steve Moyer, as saying there were about 600 percent more autistic children than just eight years prior. Contrast this to what the Autism Society of America estimates to be the “typical” growth rate of autism spectrum disorder: between 10 percent to 17 percent a year. This would put expected ASD increase in Bakersfield between 80 percent and 136 percent over an eight-year period, vs. the quoted rate of 600 percent.

Last year Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner declared his personal opposition to regulating air pollution, lamenting to the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council that “the state of California has big ideas that all revolve around putting our main industries out of business through over-regulation…” Contrary to Scrivner’s assertion, the evidence doesn’t support over-regulation, but rather a lack of regulation altogether. Business as usual seems to be the order of the day for those who personally benefit from it.

According to TransparentCalifornia.com, the combined pay and benefits of Kern County supervisors in 2021 averaged $216,000. One can only imagine the additional perks these representatives receive from oil and big ag industries, which go unreported. Surely they’re hefty enough to lure Supervisor David Couch away from his former position at Morgan Stanley LLC, where he was a wealth management broker until 2013.

And there’s Supervisor Leticia Perez, who, according to CalMatters.org, had “attracted the financial backing of the oil industry” in her recent run for state Assembly. It’s hard to imagine Perez’s relationship with her patron industry isn’t inhibiting her ability to make objective choices on behalf of those whose children are harmed by it.

I fear for the future children and families of the Bakersfield region who can’t uproot and relocate to safer locations like I did. I hope the people of Kern County realize they have a voice to choose life, come next election cycle, by voting new representatives into office. It doesn't have to be this way.

Bronwyn Schweigerdt is a former Bakersfield resident, and a licensed marriage and family therapist living with her family in Sacramento.