The morning after a quarter-inch hole in a pipeline owned by Chevron leaked petroleum fluids into the San Francisco Bay on Feb. 9, Richmond Mayor Tom Butt struck an optimistic tone about the incident at the oil giant’s refinery.
“I think in the big picture it’s going to be OK,” Butt told one local press outlet.
On his blog several days later, Butt wrote the city had “dodged a bullet on what turned out to be a relatively small spill with no lingering effects.” In a city council meeting a week after the spill, he offered no thoughts when a councilor brought up the incident.
Emails raise questions about Chevron’s bay area oil spill response