Refinery Town by Steve Early

Author:Steve Early [Early, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8070-9427-3
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2016-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

ANYTHING LEFT ON THE TABLE?

After listening to lots of testimony, pro and con, in hearings attended by hundreds of people, the Richmond Planning Commission erected a final speed bump before the city council’s vote on modernization. A predictably apoplectic Richmond Standard complained that its proposals would force Chevron to spend an additional $250 million over thirty-five years on community investments and replace all piping in the refinery installed prior to 1990.

Other changes and improvements in the company’s plan were sought by California attorney general Kamala Harris and even the Contra Costa Times. Harris’s helpful intervention led to management acceptance of a tighter cap on Richmond refinery emissions. The Times recalled how poor pipe maintenance practices had led to the fire and explosion in 2012, calling into question management claims that safety-related amendments to the EIR were now unnecessary and burdensome. “When Chevron officials say, ‘trust us,’ they forget that we once did,” the newspaper editorialized.

In response, Chevron tweaked its plan further and proposed to double its community investment to $60 million for the “good of the company and the community,” Chevron refinery manager Kory Judd explained. At a public hearing, Alex Smith, one of many Laborers Local 324 members pressing for a deal, praised these concessions for moving “labor, Chevron, and the community in the right direction.” Among those urging city acceptance now was Henry Clark, once Richmond’s leading community critic of Chevron. Clark was joined by the head of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Richmond NAACP.22

Yet by Tuesday night, July 29, Chevron management was still facing pressure to sweeten the pot. After negotiations with city councilors Tom Butt, Jim Rogers, and Jael Myrick, the company agreed to upgrade all carbon steel piping in the refinery’s crude unit and install more sensors and air monitors. It increased its proposed ten-year funding of the Environmental and Community Investment Agreement (ECIA) to $90 million. More than one-third of that sum would be allocated to a scholarship program benefiting college-bound Richmond high school seniors. As Butt reported, the rest “will fund greenhouse gas reduction and sustainability projects in Richmond, creating a lot of jobs and attracting perhaps additional millions in matching grants. Job training will move hundreds of Richmond residents into employment.”

Before the city council’s vote, Congressman Miller personally lobbied its members on Chevron’s behalf. (“First time George Miller called me in 30 years,” Butt reported in a Facebook post.)23 Judd continued to complain about modernization plan alterations that imposed “significant constraints on our operations” but acknowledged in the Contra Costa Times that it had “[become] clear that we would need to do this.”

Butt thanked all those “holding out for more stringent conditions and mitigations” because that “helped raised the ante for what we eventually achieved.” Noting that RPA, CBE, and other groups wanted more, Butt himself wondered whether his negotiating team had left anything on the table. He argued on his E-Forum, “We will never really know. There is a limit that you can push anyone, even an insanely rich multinational corporation.

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