At the urging of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) in 2021, Chevron agreed to return to Alameda Point and clean up the tar waste left behind when its refinery that produced kerosene was closed in 1903. The site was eventually filled with up to 10 feet of soil during construction of the Naval Air Station.
Chevron began the process of cleaning up buried tar at its old refinery site in May 2023 by taking 43 soil samples to characterize the extent of contamination. The sampling pipes were driven down 20 feet. But a plan for digging up the tar was not submitted to the Water Board until September 2025.
The Water Board and Chevron are currently in the process of ironing out details of the plan, with formal approval by the Water Board expected soon.
Tar cleanup to begin in Spring 2026
Chevron’s plan calls for excavating targeted areas this Spring (2026), following the rainy season. The project is expected to take from one to two months to complete.
Chevron’s investigation found that most of the old tar is located in about one-third of the former refinery site, roughly parallel with the area where the original shoreline was located when the refinery was in operation…