People Versus Chevron

Co-authored by Bill Gallegos

Atchison Village would seem like a great place to live. It's a pleasant-looking neighborhood in Richmond, California on the east shore of San Francisco Bay. The residents are diverse. Some have lived there since the village was built in 1941. Others have discovered the neighborhood more recently. It's an ethnically diverse neighborhood with a comfortable feel, barbecues on the weekend and neighbors who know each others' names, with home prices far more affordable than most places in the Bay Area.

But there's a downside: Atchison Village has a bad neighbor. You know the kind we're talking about, right? The kind of neighbor that seems not to care about property values, or endangering the welfare of the people around them. The kind of neighbor that lets their garbage blow into other people's yards. The kind of neighbor that makes messes and refuses to admit it or clean them up.

In most places, behavior like that might get a person run out of town on a rail. But Atchison Village's bad neighbor has some clout: it's the third-largest corporation in the world.

The Chevron Corporation has run a gigantic oil refinery just west of Atchison Village since 1902. Ever since the city of Richmond was built, its residents have been breathing in the poison that comes out of the refinery stacks, or escapes from its miles of pipes. People in Atchison Village and other nearby neighborhoods report much higher levels of diseases from asthma to cancer. Kids living in Atchison Village are much more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than kids in other neighborhoods. Tests have found high levels of toxic substances like sulfur and heavy metals inside Atchison Village residents' homes, which are pollutants known to be emitted by oil refineries.

Some days Chevron's a worse neighbor than usual. There was a day in March 1999 for instance, when an explosion at Chevron's refinery -- and the resulting thick cloud of toxic smoke that settled on the city of Richmond -- sent hundreds of neighbors to local emergency rooms complaining of lung pain, burning eyes, and other problems.

But even on a good day, stuff comes out of that refinery that no one should have to breathe. Stuff like hydrogen sulfide. Toxic particulate matter. Sulfur dioxide. Cancer-causing solvents like benzene and toluene. Dioxin, and -- to name a toxic chemical with which Daphne has had more personal experience than she likes -- mercury.

This would be bad enough already, but for the past couple of years Chevron has been trying to "upgrade" their refinery so that they can refine even dirtier crude oil than before.

Which could expose the people of Atchison Village, and a couple dozen other neighborhoods just like it, to even more pollution. And that could make Chevron's neighbors even sicker.

We have some great news, though: there's a hitch in Chevron's plan. Three environmental justice groups and their talented attorneys have stopped the world's third-largest corporation in its tracks, at least for a little while. After failing to get Chevron to agree not to refine dirtier crude in Richmond, the groups Communities for a Better Environment, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and the West County Toxics Coalition, represented by attorneys from Earthjustice, went to court to challenge the environmental impact report for the refinery project. In June the judge ruled that the report was inadequate, partly because it didn't inform the public about whether the project would allow Chevron to process heavier oil.

Chevron has appealed the ruling. A decision on the appeal is due soon. The fight isn't over, and these environmental justice groups definitely need your support. But there's also a lesson here: a few people, with the truth on their side, can bring even the biggest Goliath down. We can stop Chevron in its tracks if we work together.

 

Comments

[Guitarsandmore]

Let's look at the flip side of this issue:

Standing next to a solar panel or a wind generator you smell absolutely nothing....
Zero emission cars produce no smoke, no pollutants, no chemicals, nota, nothing...

Republicans say "Freedom" means it is OK for Chevron to kill us all with toxins.

Democrats say there is a cleaner, brighter, safer, future for us all with renewable energy.

[capthecrude]

Thanks to Daphne Zuniga and Bill Gallegos for this article. I'm a cancer survivor living in Richmond, not quite as close to the Refinery as Atchison Village, but close enough to care about the well being of everyone in my community.
We know Chevron has plans to refine heavier, dirtier crude in Richmond because that's what it told its shareholders. And we know that refining heavier, dirtier crude can have disastrous health and environmental consequences.
Chevron is a very wealthy corporation with immense profits. None of its employees or shareholders will suffer pain and deprivation if it commits in writing to a limit on the quality of crude it refines in Richmond (crude cap), and proceeds to upgrade the refinery with the cleanest possible equipment. Chevron put on hold indefinitely two parts of its proposed project that would actually improve things, and if they re-instate those components of the project, thousands of workers would be put back on the job.
No Chevron employees or shareholders will suffer pain and deprivation if Chevron agrees to pay its full and fair share of taxes, which it is also trying to avoid. Yet the most vulnerable members of our community-­-children, elderly, disabled--suffer when there is not sufficient revenue into the public coffers.
Everyone would win if Chevron would recognize that we are all part of the human family with a shared responsibility to take care of eachother, bringing deep satisfaction that is more rewarding than high profits on financial statements.

[californiacitizen]

1) Chevron mainly employs workers that do not live in Richmond.

2) Chevron has been out of compliance with the Clean Air Act since their emissions have been monitored

3) Citizen groups have pushed Chevron to upgrade the plant for years to protect the health of local citizens and they will not. Chevron refuses to put in writing their commitment to not refine heavier crude from the Alberta Tar Sands. Upgrades that would reduce emissions have been delayed by Chevron: 1/2 of emissions coming from the Richmond Refinery are not from smokestacks, but from leaky pipes and old equipment.

4) Richmond grew as a town to provide labor to the refinery, now people are just born into poverty there. But, that is a side issue, the real issue is that the refinery is harming the health of local citizens pushing them deeper into poverty.

5) We can provide jobs and ensure the safety of our citizens, there is no conflict. Chevron makes billions of dollars every year, they have enough to upgrade their refineries.

6) Due to the idea that small government is better government, starting with Reagan, the government does not even have enough power to uphold its own laws, so poor citizens have to initiate law suits on their own dollar to get companies to just comply with federal law.

People in Richmond want clean air, clean water and jobs. If you have that then don't be against other people wanting that too.

[Rick Miller]

Emissions are already regulated at the emissions sources by agencies empowered to do so. What the CBE lawsuit is trying to do is go around those agencies and create another set of requirements. SInce the emissions from emission sources are within the legal limits already there is no added value coming from the crude cap.

The project replaces old equipment with modern, more efficient and reliable plants. The EIR and the mitigations already agreed to reduce criteria pollutants below the current permitted levels and Chevron has already agreed not increase the the GHG above the current baseline.

The testimony at the hearings and the EIR explained that the project will run the same crudes it already runs. Since Richmond doesn't have a Coker itt can't run "Heavy Crudes" because it can't process the resid.

[gkarras]

I work for the community in Richmond. Mr. Miller is right about one thing: Chevron told environment officials it will not run heavier crude and will instead cut its ongoing emissions. It told investors:

Design and engineering for a project to increase the flexibility to process lower API-gravity crude oils at the company's Richmond, California refinery continued in 2007. Chevron Corp 10-K, 2/28/08.

Lower API crude is heavier. The industry calls it lower API consistent with its lower quality. As oil gets more like tar refiners burn more fuel to make it into gas. Up to THREE TIMES as much combustion emissions to make each gallon. Richmond uses supercritical solvent extraction and severe hydrogen processing for this instead of coking. Public officials did not estimate pollution from proposed expansion of this capacity for inherently dirtier oil. Why was it stopped? Failure to disclose a serious environmental health threat, and an organized community downwind.

[breathedeep]

"Unconventional hydrocarbons - extra heavy oil, oil sands and oil shale - account for the majority of the world's hydrocarbons resources. They are lower in value than convention crude oils because they are difficult and costly to produce and refine. Over the past 50 years, Chevron has built a broad capability in the refining heavy oil and converting it, economically and efficiently, into light, high-value products. Now we are integrating our downstream refining technologies into our upstream operation to develop extra-heavy oil and oil sands, and we are working with other to advance technology to unlock the potential of oil shale."

- Chevron
2006 Annual Report to Stockholders

[4DWORLD]

I had to respond to a couple of points from ChemE that are shockingly off base concerning the "upgrade" to install a new hydrogen plant. Chevron is doing far more than installing a new hydrogen plant -- it is modifying its processes so it can accept lower grades of crude. So yes, it will need more hydrogen. Why? To remove the higher levels of sulfur from the lower grades of crude. But heavier crude has pollutants OTHER than sulfur in it. Chevron is not analyzing the impacts that removing more sulfur as well as those other pollutants and releasing them into the environment will have on the surrounding community. In fact, Chevron does not admit that the reason it wants the additional hydrogen is to process heavier grades of crude. It doesn't actually matter whether you believe that EPA's regulations are adequate to protect human health, or that this particular refinery has blown the roof off those protections and landed local community members in the hospital countless times. The critical point is that if Chevron wants to undertake a project to increase its capacity to process heavier crude, under California law, it must analyze the impacts that project will have and mitigate them to the extent possible. Chevron's flat denial that it will process heavier crude is the OPPOSITE of that.

[510]

The strange thing about Chevron's argument is that they say they are not going to process dirtier crude, but they will not sign an agreement to do so. The EIR didn't even consider the impact of processing dirtier crude. Is it too much to ask that we know the risk to our children of a proposed expansion?

Re: 'poison at Chevron' - About 3 times PER MONTH from 2004-2007 Chevron smokestacks let out toxins above the levels known to harm human health in nearby communities and set by the agency responsible for determining whether Chevron's emissions are poisonous, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. See the data for yourself at http://hank.baaqmd.gov/enf/flares/.

Re: 'Chevron was there before houses' - So a baby born in Richmond may have to breath toxins because her/his grandparents moved to Richmond after Chevron did? Fifty years ago their was strict segregation in Richmond, and black people had three neighborhoods to choose from. Those happen to be three of the neighborhoods bordering the refinery.

Re: jobs over environment - a clean expansion would probably provide more jobs than a dirty one. Someone's got to put on all the added equipment. The project is on hold because the company didn't just plan a clean expansion from the get-go. Now Richmond residents are being asked to choose between our health and our livelihoods.

[Rick Miller]

Part 2

After a 4 year long EIR process with extensive review and debate this project was finally starting to build and replace the old plants. Now the project has been halted since July when more that 1100 union craft workers were laid off in the worst recession in 70+ years.

The community of Richmond grew up around the refinery, not the other way around. There's also a major landfill, a port with shipping terminals, manufacturing industry, 3 major freeways, and large rail yard next to Atchison Village. It is neighborhood of the City of Richmond that has a terrible crime problem, 17% unemployment and poverty. It is a town that needs jobs.

There are real environmental problems that need to be addressed in the coming years but they need to be done using facts and under reasoned judgment and regulation. Not misinformation and half truths.

Chevron is an industry leader in safe, reliable and environmentally compliant operation of the largest Refinery on the West Coast. This project needs to get going again, providing jobs, reducing emissions and manufacturing transportation fuels for California.

[abbienormal]

This is the TRI emissions report for this facility:

http://oaspub.epa.gov/enviro/tris_control.tris_print?tris_id=94802CHVRN841ST

It emitted 617,614 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air in 2007 and 293,300 pounds into the water. These toxic chemicals included 4,500 pounds of Benzene into the air and 17,000 pounds of Toluene into the air.

You can decide for yourselves whether you would like to live next to this. Keep in mind that the EPA was gutted during the Bush administration and even though these emissions are legal, you should not consider them to be safe. The EPA has a lot of catching up to do.

[ChemE in MN]

Third:

"but for the past couple of years Chevron has been trying to "upgrade" their refinery so that they can refine even dirtier crude oil than before. "
This statement boggles my mind. The upgrade Chevron was trying to do was a hydrogen plant. A hydrogen plant is used to - you guessed it - make hydrogen. Why would a refinery want hydrogen? To remove sulfur from gasoline and diesel. The same sulfur that makes SO2 from your car and reduces the effectiveness of the catalytic converter in your car. I don't understand what this "dirtier" crude oil is. The heaviest crude available to California is stuff from the Africa/Asia/middle east. There is no pipeline for Heavy Canadian crude to California. And a hydrogen plant has nothing to due with the crude slate. The other reason for a hydrogen plant would be for industrial production of hydrogen for potential use in automobiles.

Please comment back if you have a response. I would like to discuss more about this. I want to know more about enviromental activist points.

[ChemE in MN]

Second:
"stuff comes out …no one should have to breathe… hydrogen sulfide…particulate matter…Sulfur dioxide… benzene…to­luene…Diox­in… mercury"
All the chemicals you mention are controlled by the EPA. Hydrogen sulfide is probably emitted by the refinery. However, OSHA determined that the TLV for an 8 hr period is 10 parts per million. H2S is able to be smelled at 10 parts per trillion (yes, with a T). There is no harm from this small amount of H2S. You are more likely to encounter a higher dose of H2S by walking into a public men's restroom (I can't speak for a ladies' restroom).
Sulfur dioxide is more likely to burn your lungs/nose/throat. It also is emitted from stacks that are high enough to disperse the emissions.
Benzene is in every drop of gasoline. Next time you fill up, look around the pump and see all the warnings about benzene. Again, you are going to be exposed more this way, than through fugitive emissions from the refinery.
As for dioxin, I am not aware of what kind of unit that would come from.
Mercury is in the raw crude oil and discharged through the waste water plant that cleans up the water so it is cleaner than where it is going. The EPA tests this by putting minnows in a sample of discharge water and a sample of where you are discharging the water. The minnows have to live longer in your water, otherwise you get fined by the EPA.

[ChemE in MN]

I'm new to HuffPo. Disclosure - I work at an oil refinery in the United States. I am in a state with arguably the second-most stringent environmental regulations after California.

Lets look at the misleading statements in your post.
"Ever since the city of Richmond was built, … breathing in the poison that comes out of the refinery stacks, or escapes from its miles of pipes" - this is true because Richmond was not incorporated until 1905. You say the refinery was constructed in 1902.
Q: Why build a town next to a refinery?
A: Access to good (well-paying/little education required) jobs.

I don't like how you characterize the material that comes out of the stacks as poison. I can't say much about emissions in 1905, because nobody really cared much for the environment then. But that is a flat-out (possibly uniformed) lie. Which stacks are you referring to? The cooling tower stacks that emit water vapor? The heater stacks that burn smokeless and emit nothing more than carbon dioxide and water (yes they also emit NOx and SOx, but in very small amount and these emissions are regulated by the EPA)? The FCC regenerator stack that emits particulate matter (also regulated by EPA) besides SOx, NOx, and Carbon Dioxide? The flare stack that is used to relieve high pressure and protect equipment from catastrophic failures and converts any sulfur stream into Sulfur Dioxide? I don't think you can call what comes out of the stacks poison.