Gas Stations Picketed in Activists’ Effort to Gain Scrutiny of Refinery : Wilmington: The group is focusing on pollution and its effects after last year’s explosion at a Texaco plant. Company officials say the organization lacks community support.

In the months since a powerful explosion rocked the Texaco refinery in Wilmington, an organization of environmental activists has been insisting that Texaco officials meet a series of demands, including lowering pollutant emissions and allowing them to inspect the plant.

And for months, Texaco officials have dismissed Labor/Community Watchdog and its demands on the grounds that the group, a relative newcomer to Wilmington, does not have widespread community support and that its inquiries should be directed to other agencies.

Now, Watchdog is taking its protests to the gasoline pump, picketing the independent Texaco stations in Wilmington. The group’s third demonstration took place Saturday afternoon at the Texaco station at Anaheim and Henry Ford streets. Rallies are also planned for this Saturday and Feb. 20, when the group will march to the Texaco refinery.

At last week’s demonstration, members of Watchdog’s Wilmington and San Fernando Valley chapters brought signs and bullhorns for what they called an “informational picket.”

“We’ve got a lot of sick people in this community, and what these companies don’t acknowledge is that it’s from the pollutants they let out,” said Carlos Molina, a member of Watchdog.

“I won’t go into Texaco and break their machines, but I don’t want their pollution to come out and break my health,” Molina said. “We are here to let people know what is happening in their community and what it is they can do about it.”

Labor/Community Watchdog was first based in Van Nuys and is currently located in Los Angeles. The group opened an office in Wilmington a year and a half ago to organize a challenge to area refineries to change their business practices.

Initially, Watchdog found little support for organizing a movement. Then a hydrogen processing unit at the Texaco refinery exploded Oct. 8, sending a cloud of flame into the sky. Sixteen Texaco workers were injured and damage to nearby property was extensive. Interest in Watchdog picked up.

Two days after the explosion, the group called a meeting that was attended by about 200 people. The list of demands was formulated at that time.

Watchdog is demanding that Texaco “disclose worst-case accident scenarios, emergency plans and maintenance schedules.” It also asks that “a community-chosen” inspector have full access to the plant; that Texaco arrange health examinations for anyone in the community who wants one to determine the long-term effects of the explosions, regardless of whether they already were examined, and that Texaco reduce the amount of its routine emissions.

Texaco spokesman Fred Schlicher said that Watchdog has a right to much of the information it wants but that its members are seeking it from the wrong source.

“They want to know what chemicals are in the refinery? Why don’t they go to the fire marshal’s office and ask? It’s all there,” he said. “They want to know what’s in the air? Why don’t they ask (the Air Quality Management District)? That’s what the agency’s for.

“They make these demands but they don’t do their homework,” he said.

As to having an independent inspector and thousands of additional health screenings, Schlicher said Texaco has no indication that there is widespread support for either proposal in Wilmington.

“They want one individual to come in, but one individual isn’t going to be able to know how to oversee the broad technological things that we do,” he said.

In addition, Texaco is regulated by about 20 county, state and federal agencies and departments, Schlicher said.

“What are all these agencies for?”

Texaco officials, if not responding directly to each demand, are paying attention to the organization and its activities. Schlicher attended the latest demonstration, watching protesters from the gas station’s property.

Texaco also had the demonstration videotaped, a move Watchdog members called an intimidation tactic.

Pickets carried signs saying, “Esto no es un boicott--todavia!” or “This is not a boycott--yet!”

And they chanted, in Spanish--”What do we want? . . . Justice!”

One reason Texaco is not responsive to Watchdog, Schlicher said, is that the refinery is not familiar with the group and its status in Wilmington.

“We don’t think they’re a unified member of the community. Are they a corporation? Are they nonprofit? It’s a question of exactly what they are. Who do they represent? Four or five of those people picketing are paid professional staff,” he said.

“We’ve been here in the community since 1923. We’ve been here before there was a community. When did they get here?”

In spite of its recent arrival, Watchdog members said the group cannot be depicted as outside agitators because the community fighting pollution extends beyond Wilmington’s borders.

“It’s not as though Texaco built a wall around Wilmington and all its pollution only stays in Wilmington,” Watchdog organizer Geoff Ray said.

“On the first picket we had here, people from Greenpeace, Mothers of East L.A. and members from the Valley group came to help the Wilmington people,” he said. “And Wilmington people will be going to other places to help them with their struggle.

“We all have the same democratic principle that people living in a community that is affected by others have a right to have a say in what’s happening to them.”

Gas station owner Peter Han said that Watchdog workers told him they would picket his station the day before they did so but that he was nevertheless distressed by it. Han said he provides good service to customers and did not see what he had to do with either the demonstrators or refinery officials.

“I service people very good and that is the main thing. A hundred times I answer to people where is San Pedro? Where is the port? It’s easy to get lost right here at this intersection,” he said. “I have no complaints. No complaints from my customers.

“I asked them not to do it. . . . Please. They told me to tell the company to stop polluting.”

Wilmington resident Ruth Valencia, who was among the pickets, emphasized that Watchdog is not singling out Han or telling people to boycott his business.

“We have nothing against the owner of the station,” she said. “We know he’s just trying to make a living and that he’s a member of the community too.

“We just want people to know what’s happening. My hope is that Texaco realizes that it is damaging the community.”

While Watchdog picketed, some motorists passing by responded to signs that asked for a honk in support. Others ignored the pickets and pulled up to the pumps.

“Well, this is an industry-based community, so things like (the explosion) are going to happen from time to time,” Clement Garcia of San Diego said. “But these people want some respect, and industry should respect the community.”