Richmond, California is a small city about 30 minutes outside of San Francisco, with a Chevron Oil Refinery within its borders. Not many people had heard of it before 2012, but on a fateful day in August, a large fire exploded through the Chevron facility, which resulted in the almost complete destruction of two of the refinery’s towers, and the city became the focus of national news. The community was rocked to its core, and over the course of the next few weeks, over 15,000 people sought medical treatment at area hospitals as a direct consequence of the blast and the toxic smoke billowing from the factory. But the national attention did not end there. More positively, in 2014, the impossible happened; members of the community defeated Chevron-backed candidates in the local election, winning despite Chevron’s $3 million election campaign and beginning the work to take back their community. It’s an inspiring story, and one that can serve as a beacon of hope to communities across the country fighting dirty fuels and dirty industry money in politics. We had the chance to get the story of one citizen of Richmond, Kiana Ward, to get some insight into what it was like living in this city for the past 3 years.
Kiana Ward grew up in Richmond, just a few short miles from the Chevron Oil Refinery. Throughout her childhood and into her adulthood, she remembers hearing the blast of alarms coming from the facility every two months or so. It was mostly for testing the alarm system, and making the residents feel as though they would be notified quickly and efficiently if something went wrong. “It’s always a little disconcerting though,” she recalls. “As a resident, I always felt like I was living in a city where testing is necessary, which can be kind of scary to think about.”
The testing was just a part of everyday life for Kiana though. “Growing up in Richmond, Chevron was sort of always on my radar to some degree, but they didn’t really feel like an evil corporation. I didn’t really recognize Chevron as something I should be worried about until I went to college,” she states. Kiana began at Brown University in Rhode Island, traveling 3,000 miles across the country to start her freshman year in 2009, and graduate in 2013. Growing up, she spent a lot of time outdoors, rock climbing and hiking on the picturesque California terrain. So it seemed logical that while at the Ivy League Institution, she majored in Environmental Studies with a focus on environmental law and policy. She even got a scholarship from Chevron to help with her tuition fees.
While taking a class on environmental justice and injustice however, things began to change. “They used Richmond as a perfect example of environmental injustice. Here I am, 3,000 miles away, and they’re talking about my home town. I don’t know how it hadn’t occurred to me before,” she admits.
Her interest in the refinery near her house continued long after the course ended. She even based her senior year thesis off of the environmental injustices happening right outside her door. During the process, she had the opportunity to interview a third-party contractor that worked with Chevron, and was even there during the day of the 2012 fire. His job was to double check the amount of oil being put onto cargo ships. He told her that on the day of the fire, he was taken to a bunker where he had to stay for about 12 hours. They told him while he was in there that the shelter could withstand an atomic bomb. She remembers talking to him and thinking at the time, she was at her house and “this guy was put in a bomb shelter. At that moment, I was like wow, I’m living next to something that’s close to an atomic bomb,” she says.
Other people in her city began to get that impression too after the fire, which served as a “tipping point,” Kiana thinks. “Residents were finally starting to realize that Chevron wasn’t the best thing for the community.” So when council elections rolled around a couple years later in 2014, Richmond responded. “With the most recent election, there were Chevron billboards and flyers everywhere, and city residents just kind of got fed up,” she recalls. “It was just too much. We were angry and we felt unsafe.” So Kiana and hundreds of others in her community rallied together to try to change that. Kiana joined a very strong progressive force of citizens. Together they went out every day, knocking on doors, and trying to raise awareness for the Richmond Progressive Alliance that was working to support local candidates against those funded by Chevron. “The idea that Chevron could win a city council election through money is scary, and we wanted to prove that they couldn’t buy the election.”
And they were successful. Not one single Chevron candidate was elected to City Council in 2014. “Maybe it’s because when you have something you’re fighting against, kind of like a bad guy, it brings people together around the common cause,” Kiana explains when asked about the successes of her town. “Our slogan is ‘The City of Pride and Purpose’. Growing up, I thought that was kind of silly, but seeing what we have done as a community, now I think that people really do have Richmond pride. Maybe it’s because of Chevron that Richmond is able to be so progressive. Richmond doesn't have to be a refinery town, it can be something much more than that.”
Moving forward, that’s the dream Kiana has for her city -- that it’s not defined purely as a refinery town, because it has so much more potential. “Richmond is definitely going in the right direction, and I’d like to see it stay on the same path it’s on right now, or maybe even ramp it up. We’ve shown that we don’t have to accept Chevron’s money or be beholden to them,” Kiana says. She’s realistic in her hopes for the future though -- “the Refinery is unfortunately still an integral part of the city, but I think we can move on and not involve them as much in city matters and our daily lives. I don’t see us getting rid of Chevron entirely, at least not yet, but I want to turn it into something that we don’t have to be afraid of anymore, something that can finally and truly be positive for our community.”