Currently I’m working on a new project that sprung from a desire to highlight one of the Bay Area and California’s dirtiest secrets. A secret which is being largely ignored by the area’s mainstream media. Chevron is California’s biggest polluter and it’s Richmond facility occupying 3,000 acres is at the center of a controversy surrounding the company’s environmental impact here in the United States. It has been polluting the Bay Area and the community for decades with toxic waste, flares, explosions and fires releasing chemicals into the atmosphere and ground water. Now Chevron is looking to expand their refining in order to process dirtier crude. The local community is against this saying that the potential impact this would have on the community has not been properly assessed. Earlier this year I began work with Dr Henry Clark executive director of the
West Counties Toxic Coalition(WCTC) and other community leaders in North Richmond to help them highlight their struggle.
Chevron oil refinery holding tanks and a Richmond residence
General Chemical processing plant from which there have been several leaks over the years.
While Chevron recorded record profits in 2008 of $24 billion , the community of North Richmond currently suffers from an unemployment rate of approx 16%. Chevron does not employ local labor and refuses to release details of employee backgrounds. It is plainly obvious that the community sees nothing of the ground breaking profits being garnered just across the train tracks in the place they call home. The state of the community is akin to standards of living that I have witnessed in developing countries. Not the typical picture that America or California likes to paint of itself. Another non profit organization involved in the campaign in Richmond, Communities for a Better Environment,(CBE) conducted a survey of Richmond residents and found 46% of adults and 17% of kids suffering from asthma, twice the rate in the rest of the county.
Dr Henry Clark at work at the office of the West Counties Toxics Coalition, North Richmond.
In September 2008, WCTC, CBE, and Asian Pacific Environmental Network(APEN) brought a lawsuit against Chevron to stop the expansion project. In July 2009 Judge Zuniga of the county superior court found Chevron in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act in failing to provide an adequate Environmental Impact Report(EIR). On Feb 23rd this year I joined many community residents and the above groups for a hearing in San Francisco Superior Court on the issue. A ruling is expected in the coming months.
For a community that is constantly vilified in the media and the problems they face living under the shadow of Chevron, being largely ignored , I want to show a little of the other side of the story. A side that shows a community standing against injustice, discrimination and neglect. A community that is taking it’s welfare into it’s own hands and standing up to the large corporation because their own government and media has failed them. A community that is saying enough is enough, demanding their rights to a cleaner, healthier environment, greener energy and a share in the wealth in continuing along an alternative energy path.
Gwendolyn Powell, North Richmond resident and community organizer in her home office.
On March 20th I joined the community for Little League Day the first one in many years according to long time resident and community activist Leonard Webster who has been an enormous help to me as I move forward in the story. The last time I was with Leonard was the week before at his mother Dorothy’s funeral. Dorothy, 79 and a longtime Richmond resident and member of West Counties Toxics suffered from onset asthma and spent her later days on respirators. She experienced many chemical spills and Leonard was eager to have me interview her. She died before I got a chance.
Little league day began with a blessing of what will be a future community garden built on the strength and generosity of volunteers.
The site for the new community garden
Residents join hands to bless the beginning of their new garden.
Parents and children celebrated with each other all day long and I witnessed truly formidable young adult men and women volunteers leading kids in a parade through the community that culminated in a day of baseball.
Since beginning my project amongst the people of North Richmond and with all involved in the struggle with Chevron’s Richmond refinery, I have had the pleasure of making some new friends who humble me in their commitment to each other and community. There is so much positive energy and solidarity amongst the people there to make their lives better that to call it inspirational is an understatement. It is story of ordinary people fighting for truth and justice in the face of ever increasing corporate power. Just like the struggles of the indigenous communities in Equador, the Niger Delta and Rossport, Ireland. It is a human story all too commonplace in our modern world.
