Richmond, CA is no stranger to industry. It’s home to the infamous Chevron oil refinery, one of the Bay Area’s two ports, massive distribution centers, scrap metal yards, and much more. This industrial feel is nothing new. What is new, however, is the amount of coal moving through the city on its way to distant ports. Last year, community activists learned that the quantity of coal being shipped out of one private terminal in particular, the Richmond-Levin Terminal, had skyrocketed recently, from around 380,000 metric tons in 2013 to nearly 1.2 million metric tons in 2017.
Terra Verde host and Earth Island Journal Managing Editor Zoe Loftus-Farren talks with Minda Berbeco, director of the San Francisco Bay chapter of the Sierra Club, and Andrés Soto, Richmond Community Organizer with Communities for a Better Environment, about what the rising coal exports mean for public health, and how the community is pushing back through the burgeoning No Coal in Richmond campaign.