Richmond, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an evolving, multi-cultural community that has transformed itself from an over-polluted industrial town to a pioneer in an environmental justice movement. The city has been host to numerous oil refineries, including the Chevron Corporation refinery, which opened in 1901 under the ownership of Pacific Coast Oil. The Chevron Refinery is a leading source of air quality violations in the state of California. Richmond residents are also exposed to pollution from the Santa Fe train line and the presence of heavy traffic and diesel trucks along the Richmond Parkway. However, residents are most concerned with air pollution health impacts from the Chevron Refinery. In 1999, Richmond measure significantly higher on Air Quality Indices (AQI) (an indicator of how polluted is air is) compared to national level. Air pollution emission from the Chevron refinery includes benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene, nitrous dioxide, and sulfur dioxide, which are known to cause elevated cancer risks and respiratory illness. Rates of child and adult asthma are especially elevated among Richmond residents.
Richmond residents have struggled to improve local air quality. The city has a significant non-white, low-income population. According to 2010 U.S. Census, of Richmond's 103,701 person populations, “one in six residents lives below the federal poverty level, and more than eight in 10 are people of color. In North Richmond, next to one of the nation’s largest refineries, 97 percent of residents are non-white and nearly one in four live in poverty”. Low-income communities have differential access to political power, and their collective political voice is often less able to contest decisions impacting industrial operations. The combination of poverty, poor access to clean air, and poor political power can result in inequality in which communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of pollution and, therefore, suffer from greater environmental health risks.
Because Richmond is an air pollution hotspot, Richmond residents have applied different strategies since the 1980s to try to improve local air quality. The first EJ movement in the area started in the late 1980s, when the activist tried to stop construction of a garbage incinerator near North Richmond. Sixteen years later, local citizen utilizes “Bucket Brigades” to document a handful of criteria air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO), and ozone (O).This study involves citizens to actively collecting the samples of emissions from Chevron's refineries, especially during accidents, fires, leaks, and explosions. The “sniffers” alert the “samplers” to collect the air samples when they notice a problem. The “samplers” then contact the Coordinator to check the bucket and perform the paperwork before submitting the samples to the Laboratory, in which the results will be reported to CBE, an environmental justice organization. The “Bucket Brigades” did not only raise the awareness local citizens to fight against the air pollution in their area but also their participation.
As the number of activists and participants grew in numbers, their position in the battle against environmental injustice was further fortified with the election Green-party mayor of Richmond, Gayle McLaughlin, as well as three new council members sympathetic to their cause in 2008. In July 2008, despite the council failing to halt the Chevron's plan to build more refineries in the area due to rising gasoline prices during that time, the council succeeded to acquire $61 million from the oil company for community programs.
Due to great forces from the local communities and fellow EJ activists in Richmond area, Chevron has been making progress to embrace cleaner environment. In 2005, local activists managed to convince Bay Area Air Quality Management District to tighten the air pollution regulations by increasing the frequency of fines of facility incidents. Since then, Chevron has been flaring 10 times less than before. On top of that, Chevron has invested $150 million for building gas turbine in order to reduce air emission, increase energy efficiency, as well as provide most electrical and steam power Chevron requires to operate.