Question: Can you drill for oil near a school? 

Answer: Beverly Hills High School has had a well for years.\n\nOwned by the Venoco Oil Company, an oil well on Beverly's campus can easily be seen by drivers heading west on Olympic Boulevard towards Century City. The oil well has drilled most of the oil out of Beverly's campus, and has been slant drilling under many homes and apartment buildings in Beverly Hills for decades.\n\nAs of May 2006, the Beverly Hills High School well was pumping out 400 to 500 barrels a day, earning the school approximately $300,000 a year in royalties.\n\nIn the mid-1990s, an art studio volunteered to cover the well, which at that point was solid gray in color, with individual tiles that had been painted by kids with cancer. The studio created the design and drew the lines on the tiles, but children painted the tiles in between the lines. The studio made the design rather abstract: the design consists of random shapes on different-colored backgrounds. A ceremony inaugurating the design was held in 2001. The project's name was "Project 9856." \n\nBeverly gained more notoriety when Erin Brockovich and Ed Masry filed three lawsuits in 2003 and 2004 on behalf of 25, 400, and 300 (respectively) former students who attended Beverly from the 1970s until the 1990s. The lawsuits claim that toxic fumes from the oil well caused the former students to develop Hodgkin's lymphoma or cancer. The oil well is very close to all of Beverly's sports facilities, including the soccer field, the football field, and the racetrack. Beverly students -- not just athletes but students taking required physical education classes from the 1970s until the 1990s -- were required to run near the oil well. The city, the school district, and the oil companies named as plaintiffs dispute this assertion, claiming that they have conducted air quality tests with results showing that air quality is normal at the high school.\n\nAfter receiving numerous complaints about Beverly's oil well, the region’s air quality agency investigated Venoco Oil and in 2003 found the company guilty of violating three air pollution regulations. Venoco's punishment included a requirement that the company maintain continuous air quality monitoring at the high school.
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