2012 CPEO Brownfields List Archive

From: Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2012 15:46:46 -0700 (PDT)
Reply: cpeo-brownfields
Subject: [CPEO-BIF] North Richmond, California: "Pollution, Poverty, People of Color"
 
Pollution, Poverty, People of Color: The factory on the hill.

By Jane Kay and Cheryl Katz
Environmental Health News
June 4, 2012

NORTH RICHMOND, Calif. - From the house where he was born, Henry Clark can stand in his back yard and see plumes pouring out of one of the biggest oil refineries in the United States. As a child, he was fascinated by the factory on the hill, all lit up at night like the hellish twin of a fairy tale city. In the morning, he'd go out to play and find the leaves on the trees burned to a crisp. "Sometimes I'd find the air so foul, I'd have to grab my nose and run back into the house until it cleared up," he said.

The refinery would burn off excess gases, sending "energy and heat waves that would rock our house like we were caught in an earthquake," recalled Clark, 68. When the area was engulfed in black smoke for up to a week after one accident, "nobody came to check on the health of North Richmond."

...

The people of Richmond live within a ring of five major oil refineries, three chemical companies, eight Superfund sites, dozens of other toxic waste sites, highways, two rail yards, ports and marine terminals where tankers dock. The city of 103,701 doesn't share the demographic of San Francisco, 25 miles to the south, or even Contra Costa County, or the state as a whole.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2012/pollution- poverty-and-people-of-color-richmond-day-1

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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