Since Richmondside launched last June, we’ve been reporting in depth on air quality and related issues in the city. We’ve investigated and mapped Richmond’s major pollution sources, spoken to local doctors about community health impacts, profiled organizations working to offset carbon emissions by planting trees, and published a bilingual resource guide for people concerned or impacted by air pollution, among other articles.
What’s fueling Richmond’s air pollution?
This article is part of a series investigating the causes, impacts, and possible solutions to local air pollution. See the full series.
The community engagement campaign was supported by a grant from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Read our nonprofit’s policy on editorial independence.
While we believe this type of environmental reporting would be useful in any community, it’s vital in heavily industrialized Richmond, where decades of evidence has shown people are more impacted by multiple forms of environmental pollution. But beyond all of the research papers and the data, how do people living, working and going to school here experience the environment in their day-to-day lives? What issues concern them most? What do they think can be done to improve Richmond’s environment, and whose responsibility is it? How might information and more reporting help?
To help us get answers to these questions and others, we hired five part-time community listeners, residents with personal ties to diverse neighborhoods and groups in Richmond we wanted to hear from, especially those living or working in more highly polluted and less resourced areas of the city. Our goal was to get feedback from residents who we’d be less likely to reach by simply advertising a digital survey in our newsletters, on our website, or social media accounts.
Richmondside’s community listeners kicked off the survey campaign in February with a planning session at the newsroom’s offices at CoBiz on Macdonald Avenue. Top left: community listener Kelvin Ross; center photo, at left: Kari Hulac (Richmondside editor-in-chief and Joel Umanzor (Richmondside city reporter), and Jacob Simas, at right, (Cityside community journalism director) lead the meeting; Clockwise from top right: Community listeners Maria Fernanda Bernal; Guadalupe Madrigal; Nadine Argueza; and Pedro Ruiz. Credit: Tracey Taylor
We developed a digital survey in English and Spanish, optimized for mobile devices, and created a scannable QR code. Then we printed 1,000 bilingual flyers with codes to the survey and our local pollution resource guide, and had our community listeners distribute and use them to conduct surveys citywide.
They surveyed people in their personal networks, canvassed at businesses along Richmond’s commercial corridors, dropped in on direct service providers, held listening workshops at community centers and local high schools (Kennedy and Richmond High), and conducted surveys the old-fashioned way, by meeting people where they were on the streets. For residents who felt more comfortable with traditional paper surveys (a good number did), we provided those too.
So far we’ve collected 119 in-depth surveys, giving us a window into how many of our neighbors are experiencing and perceiving environmental pollution in their neighborhoods. The age of the survey respondents ranges from 14 to 70, and many said they live or work in parts of Richmond that are near freeways, the refinery, railroads and other industrial pollution sources. About 82% identified as non-white, and 48% came from Spanish-speaking or multi-lingual households. More than half had never heard of Richmondside. They included small business owners, students, healthcare workers, nonprofit service providers, barbers, cosmetologists, educators, truck drivers, refinery workers, unemployed people, and many others.
We’ve presented the major survey findings below, alongside written comments taken directly from the surveys. While the comments are anonymous, we included age, occupation and neighborhood information where possible.
Air pollution is a top concern, but isn’t the only type of pollution residents worry about
Nearly half of the people who took our survey expressed feeling concerned on a regular basis about environmental pollution in their immediate surroundings. About 44% said they worry about pollution “often” or “every day.” Another 35% said they worry “once in a while.”
When asked to identify the specific types of pollution that worry them the most (respondents were provided with a list and could select multiple options), air pollution was by far the most frequently chosen. But fears of water contamination (primarily in the bay) and concerns about garbage and dumping around the city were also common.
Over a third of those who took the survey believe that these types of pollution in Richmond have caused their health, or the health of a loved one, to be compromised.
Despite the stated physical and psychological impacts that pollution is having on the people we surveyed, a vast majority indicated they could be more informed than they currently are on local environmental issues. Only a very small percentage said they feel “very informed” on the subject. And many who filled out the survey offered ideas for related stories and topics they’d like to see Richmondside cover.
An overwhelming majority of the people who took our survey said they feel more can and should be done to reduce environmental pollution in their communities — although opinions varied on just how to accomplish that, and who is responsible. Most respondents put the onus on the city and/or Chevron, but a significant number of people left comments suggesting that the entire community has a role to play in keeping Richmond clean and healthy.
We’ll use what residents told us to do more local environmental reporting
In our survey, we also asked residents if there are specific stories or topics related to local environmental pollution that they feel are being ignored or underreported, and they responded with dozens of suggestions. Some requests were for things we’ve already published — such as an explainer about flaring or a list of resources for people experiencing adverse health impacts from air pollution — and we’ll continue to occasionally promote these posts on our website, social media channels and in our newsletter.
But other suggestions from respondents offer up new opportunities for reporting, and we’ll be pursuing as many of these as we can. Below are a few of the issues that people said they want investigated.
Lastly, we invite you to take the survey. Use the form below to let us know if and how you are experiencing pollution in your everyday environments, and whether there are specific environmental stories or topics you’d like to see us take on.
