[CPEO-BIF] North Richmond, California: "Pollution, Poverty, People of Color"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

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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