Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., recently met with local residents who have complained about foul odors coming from the oil facility in Los Angeles. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has called on an oil servicing company to stop production at its Los Angeles facility which has been the subject of hundreds of complaints since 2010 after some local residents complained of nosebleeds, headaches, dizziness and respiratory problems. Several housing projects and schools surround the site.

Boxer met with residents in the University Park neighborhood in South Los Angeles on Friday. For the past several years, residents have filed complaints with the state about foul odors from Allenco Energy Inc.'s nearby oil field, which increased production due to rising crude oil prices and new extraction techniques. Allenco leases the land from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

"This terrible situation simply cannot go on," said Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Boxer recently appealed to the Environmental Protection Agency for help and this week the agency dispatched a team of inspectors to the facility near the University of Southern California campus to collect data.

EPA spokeswoman Nahal Mogharabi told Al Jazeera that the agency conducted an inspection of the Allenco facility on Nov. 6 and that results of that inspection were still being determined.

During a visit to the facility on Oct. 24, some inspectors apparently fell sick due to vapors at the site, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest Jared Blumenfeld told the paper Friday that he and fellow inspectors suffered from coughing, sore throats and "severe headaches that lingered for hours."

"I've been to oil and gas production facilities throughout the region, but I've never had an experience like that before," Blumenfeld told the Times.