The Oilfield--My Playground

The Oil Field--My Playground

The Attractive Nuisance:

I watched a video about oil field dangers in 2011. It was very sad and heart wrenching because it featured children being killed in oil fields. As a kid, I too hung out in an oil field next to the community where I lived in Oklahoma.  It wasn't fenced nor did it have signage. I climbed the ladders of the tanks and rode the pump jacks. It was an intriguing place, and it was my “get away”—and unbeknownst to me, a dangerous place.

I expected the video to include the hazard of chemical exposure, but there was no mention of this hazard. I’ve had uterine and thyroid cancers that I have attributed to being exposed to the dirty soil and waters on, and surrounding, the oil field property where I played as a child. My drinking water was from a well that very possibly could have been contaminated from the drilling of oil wells. I swam in a pond on the oil field property. I traipsed barefooted alongside, and in, the creek bed we called “The Sinking Place.”  That Sinking Place creek waters that ran alongside the oil field was always a place of adventure of which we kids were always searching. I ate the sheep showers and berries that grew wild in that oil field. I have fond memories of those times.

To have laws requiring the oil companies to put up fences and signage is the least our legislators can do to protect the children.  I was 6 years old when I started my trek through the oil fields and the Sinking Place.