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RODEO,
Calif. – Whenever Graciela Cruz heard the shrill sound of the
alarm from the refinery next door to the Bayo Vista public housing
project, her stomach clenched.
"We
are one accident away from a disaster," said Ms. Cruz, her
nostrils flaring at the acrid smell emanating from the refinery.
"As it is, there is a constant fear and tension here knowing
– as a mother – that this place is slowly killing my children.
"How
could the government put us here knowing there’s a giant refinery
next door?"
Ms.
Cruz, 49, spent eight years at the Bayo Vista project in Rodeo,
a predominantly white, unincorporated town of fewer than 8,000 residents
in Contra Costa County. The project is mostly minority.
The
county is the industrial heart of Northern California. It is home
to almost 1 million residents and some of the biggest and oldest
oil refineries in the western United States.
There
are 22 public housing projects in Contra Costa, or "Gasoline
Alley," as it is known locally. Six of those have especially
high potentials for risk from toxic air pollution, according to
an analysis by The Dallas Morning News of factories that
report toxic air emissions to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency.
Some 1,000 families live in these projects. Most are black or Latino.
A half-dozen of the county’s housing projects are predominantly
white; none is within a mile of a toxic factory.
County
health officials said there have been no studies examining the cumulative
long-term effects of air emissions on the health of Contra Costa
residents. But in at least one study, scientists have linked air
emissions from the county’s refineries and chemical plants
to increased rates of cancer and other diseases.
Local residents also must deal with something else: a growing number
of refinery explosions and spills, which have killed employees,
sickened hundreds of families and forced thousands of people to
seek medical treatment.
Public housing officials said tenants are rightfully worried.
"It
is always a concern," said Manuel Rosario, deputy director
at the Richmond Housing Authority. "Many people have gone to
the hospital."
Refinery
safety
A
national nonprofit environmental advocacy group documented 55 major
industrial accidents in Contra Costa County between 1989 and 1997,
or one every two months.
"It
is like living next to several ticking time bombs," said Denny
Larson, an organizer with Communities for a Better Environment.
"Our research shows that the rate of accidents has increased
significantly, as well as the severity of those accidents. We’re
lucky no one off site has been killed yet."
The study reported that nine fires and spills have occurred in recent
years at a century-old refinery bordering the Bayo Vista housing
project, which was built in the early 1960s.
In 1994, refinery supervisors allowed 200 tons of the toxic compound
Catacarb to spew from the top of a tower for 16 days, coating homes,
cars and yards with a sticky mist. Catacarb is a severe alkaline
solution used to purify hydrogen; then it removes sulfur from gasoline.
Unocal Corp., which owned the refinery, notified the Contra Costa
County Health Department but said the leak did not pose a threat
to residents or workers.
The owner later agreed to pay $80 million to some 6,000 residents
sickened by the release and $3 million in civil and criminal penalties.
Unocal sold the refinery to Tosco Refining Co. in 1997. An explosion
last year at another Tosco refinery near Martinez killed four workers.
The company ultimately accepted responsibility for the fatal fire
and agreed to pay almost $2 million in various penalties. Ultramar
Diamond Shamrock Corp., a San Antonio-based oil company, recently
agreed to buy that refinery from Tosco
"There
is tremendous concern in this county regarding the safety of Tosco’s
refineries," said Robert McEwan, executive director of the
Contra Costa Housing Authority, which oversees the Bayo Vista project.
Tosco officials declined interview requests.
More generally, said Mr. McEwan, "The proximity [of public
housing] to the refineries does give me concern."
Two
of the county’s housing projects – Triangle Court and
Las Deltas in Richmond – are near a sprawling
Chevron
refinery that has been the scene of nine major accidents over the
last decade.
Richmond,
a predominantly black city of 90,000, is the chemical center of
Contra Costa County. Standard Oil built the refinery at the turn
of the century. Beginning in the 1940s, government officials built
Triangle Court and Las Deltas.
The projects are overwhelmingly minority, and the surrounding residential
neighborhoods have long been poor and mostly black.
A
1999 explosion at the Chevron refinery was among the worst. It sent
an 18,000-pound plume of sulfur dioxide smoke over the two projects
and the neighborhoods. Sulfur dioxide is a corrosive chemical that,
if inhaled in significant amounts, can cause eye and skin damage.
Hundreds
sought treatment for breathing and eye problems. Authorities told
10,000 residents to remain inside for several hours. The cloud killed
trees and took the fur off squirrels, said Cherron Holmes, who handles
complaints for the tenants’ group that helps manage Triangle
Court.
"I
lost my voice for six weeks," she said. "And I threw up
a lot. Everybody did."
A class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of Richmond residents
was filed last fall against Chevron alleging negligence.
According
to the lawsuit, county health records show that from 1989 through
1997, Chevron’s Richmond refinery was second only to Tosco
in the number of serious oil and chemical accidents.
Chevron spokeswoman Marielle Boortz responded, "We would never
do anything to intentionally create an unsafe situation."
She said air emission standards in Richmond are among the strictest
in the world. "We have this complete regulatory network that
looks at that and to date, there hasn’t been anything identified
as far as there being any significant
risk posed by this refinery."
In the early 1980s, a team of scientists who studied petroleum and
chemical plant air emissions in the county and cancer rates concluded
that there was "a strong positive association between the degree
of residential exposure and death rates from cardiovascular disease
and cancer." The areas with the highest exposure included Rodeo
and Richmond.
Health
issues
In
1987, three years after the study was published by a federal health
research institute, the Richmond Housing Authority demolished and
rebuilt Triangle Court at the same location at a cost of $5 million.
Mr. Rosario, the Richmond housing official, said no other sites
were available.
"Refinery
emissions are just something that you live with," he said.
"It’s an industrial area. These are the choices that people
make."
Families at Triangle Court and Las Deltas said they have little
choice about where they live. Many parents in these projects said
emissions from the Chevron refinery have sickened their children.
Nakia Saucer and Ugochi Nwadike each have four children. They said
the children have chronic asthma, skin rashes, recurring nosebleeds,
headaches and coughing attacks – all of which their doctors
cannot explain.
"I
don’t smoke cigarettes, I don’t drink alcohol and I have
no history of asthma," said Ms. Nwadike, a native of Nigeria
who recently earned a nursing degree at San Francisco State University.
"The poison from the refinery is killing these children."
Residents
are fighting back.
After years of trying, parents and school officials recently secured
enough money to move Rodeo’s Hillcrest Elementary School, which
is also alongside the Tosco refinery.
The
Cruz family, meanwhile, was finally able to leave Bayo Vista behind
when Graciela and her husband landed jobs in Reno, Nev. Their 14-year-old
son, Benito, who suffers from asthma, was ecstatic.
His parents were born in Mexico. Benito was born in the United States.
He loves America but said he felt betrayed.
"The
government promised us freedom and justice but put us next door
to a refinery," he said. "That is not freedom or justice."
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