My wife and I live downwind from the Conoco-Phillips Rodeo CA refinery. This refinery has a checkered past including a serious incident in the 1990's in which it polluted the air with a dangerous cancer causing chemical known as catacarb.
This particular incident lasted for over ten days and caused serious breathing problems for thousands of people. Its long range effects are still not fully known.
Lately, Conoco has refused to renew the good neighbor agreement that came out of the catacarb incident and has spent thousands of dollars to spearhead an effort to defeat two parcel tax measures that would have benefited our small school district.
We have struggled with the company to upgrade its fenceline monitoring system, and recently they started up a new unit before they had received full permission from the appropriate county authorities. Needless to say, we have more than enough reasons to fight for clean air.
