City Government

Contra Costa County Health Services to Oversee Investigation of Chevron Flaring Incident

Published

12 years ago

December 30, 2014

Chevron has agreed to have Contra Costa Health Services (CCHS) oversee the investigation of the Dec. 18 flaring at the Richmond Refinery and to keep the agency and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District informed of the investigation.

Chevron will meet with health agency and Air District representatives on a weekly basis to provide status on the investigation and will share a draft of the final report with them for comments before the final report is complete.

The investigation lead will provide an overview of the investigation once it is complete and the underlying process data used in the investigation will be available for review by the other agencies.

The investigation will take approximately a month.

Chevron submitted a 72-hour report to Contra Costa Health Services on Dec. 19. The Chevron report indicated a loss of cooling resulted in the need to depressurize the refinery’s solvent de-asphalting unit, and that the unplanned flaring incident occurred as part of the refinery’s safety system to depressurize and shutdown the unit.

Flaring is a safety measure refineries use to burn excess fuels released to depressurize an affected unit. County Hazardous Materials staff was notified of the flaring activity at the Chevron refinery about 6:55 p.m. on Dec. 18.

The flaring occurred intermittently for about three hours.

Hazardous Materials staff responded to the scene to assess the situation and determined a shelter-in-place was not needed because no odors were detected, and ground level fence line chemical monitors at the site did not register levels that would require a shelter-in-place.

Contra Costa Hazardous Materials will review and audit Chevron’s corrective action plan process for the incident.

For more information, go to http://cchealth.org/hazmat/chevron-incident-2014-1218.php

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

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4 days ago

July 5, 2026

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Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”