Home
About Us
Direct Organizing
Movement Building
Environmental Justice & API Issues
News & Updates
Join Us


Donate Now
Chevron Expansion Equals Environmental Racism

SHARE YOUR CHEVRON STORY

For years, Chevron has pumped millions of tons of toxics into the air we breathe each day.  How has this affected your health?  Your family? 

What is your vision for a greener, healthier Richmond?  Share your story with APEN here.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE GROUPS SUE CITY OF RICHMOND OVER APPROVAL OF CHEVRON REFINERY EXPANSION
Flawed Environmental Review Endangers Public Health and Environment

DOWNLOAD
Poll Results on the Chevron Refinery Expansion
September 4, 2008
RICHMOND, CA - Environmental justice groups filed a lawsuit challenging the Richmond City Council’s approval of Chevron’s refinery expansion project today.

At issue is an environmental review that concealed that the project would result in much higher pollution. Communities in Richmond, particularly low-income and communities of color, are severely overburdened with industrial pollution-related health problems, including high rates of asthma and cancer. Chevron’s refinery is the largest industrial polluter in the region.

The expansion would allow heavier and dirtier crude oil to be processed at the Richmond refinery, which would increase releases of mercury, selenium, toxic sulfur compounds, and greenhouse gases. The City Council approved the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Conditional Use Permit for Chevron’s expansion project despite the fact that the impacts of refining dirtier and more polluting oil were not disclosed, analyzed, or mitigated by the EIR.

“Chevron’s project would lock in a fundamental switch to dirtier oil refining that increases toxic and climate-poisoning pollution drastically when avoiding these impacts is feasible,” said Greg Karras, a senior scientist with Communities for a Better Environment (CBE). “The City violated the community’s right to know about and act on this information,” he said.

“The City Council failed its legal and moral obligation to protect our health,” said Richmond resident, Torm Nompraseurt, of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. “Those dangerous chemicals are going to affect me, my family, and my neighbors but the City didn’t even look at what Chevron is really going to be doing.”

Hundreds of residents jammed the City Council hearings in July demanding the City Council limit the refinery from processing dirtier crude oils and re-do the Environmental Impact Report that failed to analyze the project Chevron actually plans to build. Community groups also advocated for Chevron to pay into a “Fund for Richmond’s Future” – a community-controlled fund to support the development of a cleaner and greener economy in Richmond.

Instead, Chevron made a multi-million dollar offer in exchange for project approval with weakened environmental protections and less public review of future refinery projects. Chevron valued its offer at about $61 million. City and Chevron officials negotiated a proposed contract to execute the deal without public input, and presented it at the City Council’s hearing on the project without public notice. The Council accepted the deal and approved the project without completing the environmental review needed to identify, analyze, and lessen or avoid its significant environmental impacts.

“Chevron must stop its toxic assault on poor people of color in Richmond. The City Council is selling out our community, but our health is not for sale,” said Henry Clark, executive director of the West County Toxics Coalition. “We will fight this until we achieve environmental justice.”

“The California Environmental Quality Act requires government agencies to look before they leap by analyzing and mitigating all significant environmental impacts” said Will Rostov, an attorney for Earthjustice, who represents the environmental justice groups in court. “The City’s environmental review fails in its most basic purpose.”

A poll conducted by David Binder Research indicated that an overwhelming majority (73 percent) of Richmond voters supported the City Council delaying a decision on the Chevron expansion until the environmental and health impacts of refining heavier crude oil were fully reviewed. In addition, 75 percent of Richmond voters said it was very or extremely important that any projects or funding between Chevron and the City Council be determined in an open public process.

The lawsuit was filed today in Contra Costa County Superior Court on behalf of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), and the West County Toxics Coalition by attorneys from Earthjustice and CBE.

Read the poll results on the Chevron refinery expansion by David Binder Research (PDF):
http://www.apen4ej.org/download/BinderRichmondChevronPollAPEN.pdf


CHEVRON’S DIRTY SECRET:
More Pollution for Richmond and the Bay Area

On June 5, 2008, the Richmond Planning Commission voted to require a "comprehensive crude cap" as a part of Chevron's proposed expansion of its Richmond oil refinery. APEN members and the Richmond Alliance for Environmental Justice packed the hearing and urged Richmond's Planning Commission to stop Chevron from expanding the refinery's capacity to process heavier and dirtier crude oil. For the full press release, click here.

BACKGROUND ON CHEVRON

Built in 1902, the Chevron Richmond Refinery is one of the oldest and largest refineries operating in the US. To refine its capacity of 87.6 million barrels of crude oil per year, the refinery produces over 29 billion pounds of climate-poisoning, smog-forming and toxic air and water pollutants each year.

The EPA reported almost 300 pollutant spills from the Richmond refinery from 2001 to 2003 alone. These are highly toxic, often cancerous, chemicals. The EPA lists the refinery in “significant noncompliance” for air pollution standards and toxic flaring is a regular occurrence. Deadly accidents are a far too common occurrence, including massive explosions and fires. Richmond’s cancer and child-asthma rates exceed area, state and national averages.

Rather than clean-up its Richmond refinery, Chevron is seeking to expand its facilities so it can process heavier grades of contaminated crude oil that require more heat and pressure and result in more pollution. Chevron’s Environmental Impact Report fails to provide adequate information about all the oils to be refined and therefore the amount of pollution emission. It omits that the expansion would allow for pollution-intensive processing of oils that are higher in contaminants and may cause up to fifty times more pollution. The Report is fundamentally deficient and we are calling it to be revised and recirculated for public review.

Based on fact sheets from Communities for a Better Environment and Direct Action Against the War

Learn how APEN and Richmond are joining communities around the world to demand justice from Chevron: Read more about the expansion and Chevron in the news:
Chevron Refinery in Richmond In 1999, a major accident at the Chevron oil refinery hospitalized thousands of people. The County’s English only emergency telephone system made a bad situation even worse. After this accident, APEN members organized to win the nation’s first emergency warning system that will notify nearby residents in their own native language. For more information on LOP’s campaign for a safe and accessible warning during industrial accidents, click here.