APEN Fights Chevron Refinery Growth in Richmond

posted 6/29/08

The Asian Pacific Environmental Network has joined a coalition of neighborhood groups opposing the expansion of a Chevron refinery in Richmond, California. Chevron has been poisoning the Bay Area community for decades. Expanding the current facilities to process dirtier oils will result in more pollution.

In early June, the Richmond Planning Commission voted to give preliminary approval to the expansion but 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. Richmond's planning commissioners later removed limits 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 3000 acre, waterfront 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, highly toxic, often cancerous, chemicals, from the Richmond refinery from 2001 to 2003 alone. The EPA lists the refinery in “significant noncompliance” for air pollution standards and toxic flaring is a regular occurrence. In 1999, there was a major explosion a the refinery. Richmond’s cancer and child-asthma rates exceed state and national averages.

Members of the coalition include Communities for a Better Environment, the Richmond Alliance for Environmental Justice and APEN. The coalition is circulating a petition against Chevron’s plans

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