Bay Area

Neither Snow, Nor Rain, Nor COVID-19: Postal Workers Keep Pushing Against Odds

Published

5 years ago

April 22, 2020

There are all kinds of frontline workers battling COVID-19. Some tend to the sick in hospitals, others brave the streets to distribute food. And the postal worker’s simple act of delivering mail is proving to be as essential as those other jobs.

Every day across California, about 63,000 postal workers continue to make sure precious cargo gets to where it needs to go in the state — life-saving medications to people living with chronic illnesses, pension checks to aging adults, mail-in ballots to homebound voters and more.

And even with growing competition from Amazon, FedEx, UPS and other courier services, the United States Postal Service (USPS) still delivers more online orders than any of those businesses.

Now that researchers have confirmed that the Coronavirus can be transmitted through the air and that it can even live on your mail, postal workers on the frontlines are more concerned about their safety than ever.

So far, about 30 USPS workers have died from COVID-19 and thousands have been infected, according to Mark Dimondstein, president of the Postal Workers Union, a national organization

Renee Adams, a mail carrier for four years in San Diego, says the team she works with delivers approximately 20 packages an hour. Last Sunday, they had over 800 individual packages with only three postal workers in her unit on hand to make all the deliveries.

“They started at 8:30 a.m. but didn’t get finished until 9 p.m.,” she said. “They were calling people to report to work, but no one would pick up the phone.”

A trusted face, a friend and sometimes a confidante, postal workers across the nation often have to step in and do more than drop mail off to customers. Although the workload is great, Adams shares that there are aspects of her job that reinforce the importance of the human connection.

“I deliver to a lot a seniors,” she says. “They can’t go anywhere, and they don’t have anyone to talk to. They want to talk to us but they’re scared to come near us, and they don’t want to sign for their packages just in case we have [coronavirus]. We have to sign the receipts for them.”

Cheryl Morrow, an African-American businesswoman in San Diego, says both of her businesses — a print newspaper that she mails and beauty products that she ships – rely on the USPS.

“The USPS is a partner that I can depend on,” said Morrow.

Nevertheless, some politicians in Washington have been giving the mail delivery service that has enabled communications between Americans for more than 200 years a hard way to go.

According to the Washington Post, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin threatened Congress that Pres. Trump would veto the $2 trillion stimulus package that lawmakers approved earlier this month if it included a $13 billion direct grant to the USPS. A bipartisan team of congressional negotiators had already agreed to the provision. Instead, the feds offered a $10 billion loan to USPS in the final stimulus bill the president signed. The Treasury Department has not yet approved the funds although the bill passed more than a week ago.

The Post Office is not taxpayer funded, so it normally runs on revenue from postage and services, Dimondstein said, according to a Common Dreams report. “And if 40% to 50% of that dries up in this pandemic—which is what looks like it’s happening, in a very quick and precipitous way—then that money has to be made up.”

He is demanding that Congress include a $25 billion aid package to the USPS in the next stimulus bill.

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

3 days ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

1 week ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

1 week ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.