Company Town
In late March 2013, a group of about 25 attended a “Toxic Tour” of Richmond led by Communities for a Better Environment organizer Andres Soto.
The microphone sputtered in and out as community members lined up for a turn to speak at the new Collaborative on Refinery Safety and Community Health’s public forum Wednesday evening. The meeting at St. Mark’s Catholic Church gym was the first of many conversations the group plans to have in Richmond and across the state. The evening’s panelists included representatives from the United Steelworkers union, the Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley, and several environmental groups. Speakers stressed both…
The fire at Richmond’s Chevron oil refinery on August 6, 2012 wasn’t the only reason the United Steelworkers union and several environmental organizations—disparate groups that rarely work in tandem—decided to join forces in an industry-wide conversation about health and safety, but it was certainly an accelerating factor. “Absolutely, that spurred us,” said Charlotte Brody, national associate director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental groups that advocate for a green economy and safer workplaces. “It was…
An empty chair sat on the dais of Richmond City Hall Tuesday night during the inauguration of re-elected councilmembers Tom Butt and Nat Bates. Outpourings of well wishes for its intended occupant, Gary Bell—who won the November race but is in a medically induced coma following a bacterial sinus infection—dominated public speeches and the hushed conversations in the gallery.
Decades of industrial pollution have left toxic contaminants in Richmond’s air, water, and soil. Click on the icons to learn more.
Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin first saw Henry Clark, as so many have, at the gates of Richmond’s Chevron oil refinery. It was a blustery day in June 2003 and Clark was calling for environmental accountability from the oil company – as he has for many years – in front of an impassioned crowd of community members holding signs attacking refinery flares and “dirty air.” “He spoke prior to me” at the event, recalls McLaughlin, who had arrived armed with statistics…
Chevron will replace all piping in the damaged sections of the Richmond refinery with chrome alloy, the company said in a letter Wednesday to the city of Richmond and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The move comes six weeks after Chevron announced that it believed the Aug. 6 fire may have occurred because of thinning and corrosion in a piping component that may have had low silicon content. “Before the restart of the crude unit, Chevron will complete…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says investigations into Chevron’s August 7 fire in Richmond will take at least a year, and it’s premature to discuss prosecution or fines. At an August 27 public briefing on the investigations, Dan Meer, the assistant director of the EPA’s Region 9 Superfund Division, said the EPA would prosecute to the fullest extent possible if it finds that Chevron violated the law. In an interview this week Meer qualified his remarks. “It is very early in…
There are five separate investigations into the Aug. 6 Chevron refinery fire, but if Monday’s meeting was any indication, many Richmond residents doubt even that will be enough.