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Once Again, a Chevron Oil Spill Is Impacting a Community of Color
Richmond residents have lived through a long history of environmental injustice perpetrated by the oil giant
On Tuesday, the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California, spilled up to 750 gallons of diesel fuel into the San Francisco Bay, leaving many of the city’s residents feeling unsafe and scared. Two days after the spill, a muted, rainbow-colored sheen could be seen along at least a mile-long stretch of the coastline. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife tweeted that some of the oil has washed ashore.
“It is alarming,” Dale Weatherspoon, pastor of the Richmond-based Easter Hill United Church, tells Future Human. “As one person said, ‘I just don’t feel safe walking along the beach or having my children playing in the water,’ you know? So it’s affecting people’s quality of life. I’m thankful that it wasn’t a larger spill.”
Compared to previous oil spills in the United States, the recent Richmond spill was relatively small. Three years ago, Chevron spilled 4,800 gallons of oil in western Colorado in 2017, and BP spilled 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 during the Deepwater Horizon incident. Contra Costa Health Services rescinded a public health alert issued in the early hours after Tuesday’s spill, and recovery crews have found no visible impacts on wildlife.
“Well, to me, it’s just another example of how the Chevron Richmond refinery is incompetent in running their facility over the last several years.”
Nevertheless, environmental justice activists in Richmond point out that the refinery has long threatened the public health of the city. Richmond-based groups like Communities for a Better Environment and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network are calling for the refinery to be shut down and decommissioned safely. It’s not just happening in Richmond — the company has a long history of environmental abuses in communities of color across the globe, including Ecuador, Brazil and Nigeria.
“It’s just another example of how the Chevron Richmond refinery is incompetent in running their…
