Chevron Richmond Refinery: Accountability on the Road to Compliance Judith Balmin PP224A GIS Final Project Winter

Why Richmond? Why Chevron? Why asthma? “Richmond’s children with asthma are hospitalized at twice the rate of children from other parts of Contra Costa County”-Mayor Gayle Maclaughlin Residents give testimony about impact from refinery emissions: Burning eyes, shortness of breath, bad smells, and residues on windows There is an elementary school, 2 housing projects and 25,000 people living within 3 miles of the Chevron Richmond Refinery The refinery has been in high priority violation of the Clean Air Act since at least

Recap Source: Californiabreathing.org. Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, Produced by Judith Balmin Percent Total Lifetime Prevalence for Asthma in California Rate of ED Visits for Asthma in 2008 in California CCC has among worst rates of asthma related ER visits in CA 3

Recap Asthma and Pollution concentrated on north side – wealth on south side Self Reported Asthma Symptoms and TRIs Released in CCC CCC Household Income

Recap The Chevron Refinery in Richmond is amongst the worst polluters in CCC Worst Polluters in CCC in 2009 Nearly all are refineries - The CA Dept Of Heath sites pollution from petrochemicals sources as a major cause of asthma 5

Recap Created index to isolate Toxic Air Contaminants from the other 45 TRI substances Lead Nickel Ethylene Carbon Tetrachloride Benzene Chloroform Contrast Between TRI and TAC Releases in CCC TAC info from CA EPA Air Resources Board 6

Recap Worst TAC Polluters in CCC in

Variables to consider in finding the most suitable locations 8

Locations most suitable for a new health clinic 9

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Locations most suitable for a new health clinic Neighborhoods in Richmond: Sheilds Reid and City Central City Central Sheilds Reid 11

Roads from Census Tiger 2000 Street boundaries around areas with most need for a new clinic in Richmond, CA 12

My Models Used model to create rasters for asthma percentage and average income by census tract variables Used model to reclassify my rasters that resulted from both Euclidian Distance and Features to Raster processes 13

Metadata for the layers I created 14

Skills Used Inset Map and Georeferencing – slide 5 Point Graduated Symbol – slide 3 and 4 Geocoding – slide 4 and 7 (clinics and TRI sites) Creating Indices – slide 5 and 6, Toxic Air Contaminants index created from individual qualifying substances Measurement/Buffer – Slide 6 and 10 Geoprocessing – Clipping all throughout Hotspot Analysis – Slide 7-10 Modeling – 7 (used to create rasters and reclassify) Original data – Created and imported spreadsheets for geocoding clinics and TRI sites which I then used to make shapefiles Metadata – Created metadata for clinics and TRI sites shapefiles 15