Taking Stock: Visioning Beyond the Refinery

Harms

• Damaging health effects from toxic air pollution 
• Contamination of the bay, groundwater and soil 
• Political manipulation 
• Exacerbation of the climate crisis 
• Racial injustice 
• Suppressed property values 
• Hazardous working conditions

Dependencies

• Regional employment with high salaries and benefits 
• Local tax payments that fund public services 
• Financial contributions to nonprofit service providers 
• Fuel and other petroleum products that are in demand in current economy

Community Voices

“There are a lot of college students here in Richmond, and I know every single one of my siblings has gotten the Richmond Promise, that I didn't even know until recently that Chevron sponsors. I don't know a lot about economics and things like that, but I do hear people talk about “oh Chevron pays a lot in taxes” and things like that. But at the same time I'm like, what amount of money is worth all of our lives?”

- Lizbeth Ibarra

 “They’re poverty pimping at the end of the day, they're trying to wash their hands through other nonprofits.”

- Alfonso Leon

Listen to this audio here.

Public Data

What community projects and services depend on the refinery?

• Chevron signed an agreement with the City of Richmond in 2014 committing to fund local nonprofits if the city approved its so-called "modernization" project. Over a period of 10 years, Chevron agreed to spend $90 million in two main areas: (1) Greenhouse Gas reduction programs, such as transit services, climate action plan, urban forestry, roof-top solar and energy retrofittings; and (2) Community programs, such as Richmond Promise scholarships, grant programs, job training programs, public safety programs and a free internet program.⁸

Community Voices

“I've experienced living in this area firsthand and how bribery, how lobbying, how politics really play out. And it's crazy because we somehow managed to sacrifice our own well-being and livelihood just for jobs.”

- Alfonso Leon 

“These politicians have been bought out. They’ve been bought out by Chevron and that’s why it’s continued to happen and that’s why they’re still here. Because they just have money and they’re putting money in other people’s pockets.”

- Minerva Arrebalo

“2014 is always the big example I use. Chevron spent over $3 million to try and defeat our progressive candidates for office, and to elect their Chevron-friendly candidates, but they failed terribly in their efforts. All the progressive candidates won, all of us won and all of the Chevron-friendly candidates lost. So that made national news. You know, it was a David vs. Goliath battle.”

- Gayle McLaughlin

For more, listen to the podcast episode Polluting Politics here.

Public Data

How has the refinery and Chevron influenced political power and policies?

• Chevron wields political influence through various strategies, including:
  • Giving funds to political candidates and Political Action Committees⁹
  • Funding for community events and projects¹⁰
  • Building alliances with other corporations, construction trade and police unions, the Council of Industries and Chamber of Commerce
• Chevron operates a local news outlet the Richmond Standard,¹¹ and pays a consultant to administer another website, Radio Free Richmond.¹²
• The 2014 Richmond city council election demonstrates how far Chevron has gone to influence politics in the city. Chevron moved $3 million into three political committees to support their preferred candidates.¹³
• In more recent elections, Chevron has shifted away from direct payments to political committees in Richmond, but Chevron as a whole did not halt political contributions.¹⁴ In 2021, Chevron spent more than $6.7 million on congressional lobbying.¹⁵

Community Voices

“They particularly have been extremely uncaring and unresponsive to the people who live nearest to Chevron… the frontline communities. They should seek out generations of people they’ve harmed, closest to the refinery and support them.”

- Roshi Sirjani

Public Data

How much land does the refinery take up and how does it affect local property values?

• The Chevron Richmond Refinery property covers a 2,900-acre area, occupying over half of the city’s industrial and commercial land.^{16, 17}
• Refineries have a negative effect on property values in surrounding neighborhoods. A study of the effects of a refinery on residential property values found that for homes within the area affected by air contamination, there was a negative 6-8 percent effect.¹⁸
• This has a racialized effect because the neighborhoods most burdened by refinery pollution are the areas where people of color were restricted to during the biggest phase of population growth in the city’s history.

Community Voices

“The role that they're playing is making climate change move faster and faster, and pushing down many, many different communities and Indigenous people. Not just from pumping oil, but this also means deforestation, also means waterways being messed up and covered in algae, and it's all connected. And it goes down the line to create more and more problems.”

- Theresa Dixon

“Fossil fuels are deadly. They are bad for health in the here-and-now and they are bad for health in the longer term. Combustion of fossil fuels is the primary driver of climate change, which is an existential threat to all of our health. This is true regardless of whether or not we live in a refinery community or a community where there's oil and gas drilling.”

- Dr. Amanda Milstein

How much does the Richmond refinery contribute to the climate crisis?

• The Chevron Richmond refinery is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gas in the state among  the 540 largest "stationary sources" (as opposed to mobile sources like truck traffic) in California.¹⁹
• There has been almost zero (less than 1%) actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at the Richmond refinery during the most recent 10-year period for which data is available.²⁰
• The Chevron refinery’s air pollution increases the likelihood of droughts, wildfires, food shortages, sea levels rising, and other climate change effects. 

Community Voices

“One of the things that was most striking to me when I first started practicing (medicine) in Richmond was the expectation from families that their children would develop asthma, and the sort of inevitability of it. The sense that we know this is going to happen, the question is when?”

- Dr. Amanda Millstein 

Listen to this audio here. 

“They're killing us slowly, or even quickly because of their constant pollution and flaring. So that's how they directly affect our lives.”

- Christian Guzman

​​​Public Data

How much local air pollution does the refinery produce, and how does it affect residents’ health?

• The Refinery is the single largest source of particulate matter emissions (PM2.5) in the City of Richmond.²¹
• The refinery releases hundreds of tons of pollutants each year (like PM2.5, NOx, SOx) that are known to cause decreased function of vital organs, heart attacks, Inflammation and irritation of the respiratory system and other health problems.²²
• Flaring events occur when excess toxic gasses are burned and then released into the atmosphere, and have been common in the last two decades. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) counted 116 flaring incidents from Chevron from 2005 to 2019, more than one every other month on average.²³
• Decades of neglect lead to disasters like the 2012 explosion during which six Chevron employees were injured and 15,000 residents of Richmond sought medical treatment for respiratory issues.²⁴

How has the refinery affected people’s health in Richmond?

• “5.1 to 11.6 premature deaths per year were attributed to baseline Particulate Matter 2.5 emissions from the Chevron refinery,” according to a 2021 study by the agency responsible for monitoring and regulating air quality in the Bay Area.²⁵
• Other health effects include infant mortality, cancer, and traumatic mental health effects due to explosions and ongoing environmental harm.²⁶
• The racial inequities in neighborhood environmental conditions lead to racial inequities in related health problems.²⁷

Community Voices

“For starters, we need policies and procedures to get the soil around the refinery cleaned up because of 100 years being on top of that. You cannot tell me that nothing has seeped into the soil, you know, into the water system and irrigation. They need to be responsible for cleaning that up. You know we need to be responsible as a city, our dignitaries need to put stuff in place, so that when that time does come, the costs can't come back on us.”

- Courtney Cummings

​​​Public Data

How much does the Richmond refinery contribute to water pollution?

• Converting crude oil into products like gasoline involves chemical techniques that contaminate the bay and groundwater. Although some of these releases are technically legal, they add up over time, resulting in elevated levels of contaminants that degrade our environment and threaten public health.
• In 2021, 37,722 pounds of toxic chemicals were released into surface waters by Chevron’s Richmond refinery.²⁸
• This toxic reality is difficult for communities hoping to live a sustainable lifestyle, like the Laotian community in West County, half of whom ate fish they caught themselves, according to a 1998 study by APEN.²⁹
• Groundwater may also get polluted when contaminants seep their way into aquifers. Sea level rise may push toxic groundwater up to the surface. These toxic substances can seep into basements, a broken sewage line, or even vaporized and breathed in by humans.
• The February 2021 oil spill into the bay emphasized that local ecosystems and Richmond residents are constantly at risk.³⁰

Community Voices

“The vast majority of the health impacts have been born by marginalized communities that have been affected by systemic racism. Redlining, you know, it is by no accident that the communities that have bore the brunt of these health impacts are communities that have been chronically underserved and underfunded and under invested in.”

- Dr. Amanda Milstein ​​​​​​

“I think the refinery shouldn't be here. Environmental racism is what plays a huge role and where refineries and factories like this are placed. They are placed here for a reason because these are the people that the system doesn't care about. These are people that they want to leave behind - Black, indigenous, people of color, and poor people also.”

- Minerva Arebalo

Public Data

What effects has the refinery had on racial injustices and inequality?

• Even in the years just before the refinery was established on Ohlone land in 1901, there had been campaigns led by militias and government forces to eliminate native people in California.³¹
• Housing discrimination along with government-sponsored racial exclusion isolated communities of color and forced many to live in neighborhoods surrounding the refinery, like North Richmond. Decades later, the demographic patterns remain, with the highest percentages of people of color living in neighborhoods next to the refinery.³²
• A recent study conducted by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) modeled estimates of total population exposure and found that Latinx and Black residents are the most exposed to PM2.5. The study also found that although there are more white residents than Black residents Richmond, Black residents are exposed to nearly twice as much PM2.5 as those of white residents.³³
• These residents must contend with other persistent health threats and lack of access to resources, making them less likely to have the means needed to prepare for and respond to emergencies like the 2012 Fire and refinery flaring.