We provided $10 million to five Gulf Coast community organizations that participated in environmental and economic relief, spill response and cleanup after the BP Macondo well incident in the Gulf of Mexico.
One group was the National Audubon Society. Our Pascagoula, Mississippi, refinery helped the group establish the Gulf Coast Audubon Volunteer Response Center to manage more than 35,000 inquiries by volunteers wanting to assist in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama.
"Our collaboration with Chevron allowed us to inform and mobilize volunteers across the country," said Audubon President David Yarnold. "We provided much needed relief efforts and built a corps of citizen scientists committed to the long-term conservation of coastal bird populations and habitats across the Gulf."
Other groups we funded were The Nature Conservancy and America's WETLAND Foundation, which used funding to address coastal restoration; the Committee for Plaquemines Recovery, which supported hardhit commercial fishing communities along the Louisiana coast, where we have major facilities; and Greater New Orleans, Inc., which applied funding to economic recovery in concert with the Louisiana Economic Development Department.
"These community partners had immediate needs to mobilize and respond to impacts on local residents," said Warner Williams, vice president of Chevron's Gulf of Mexico operations, "and we continue to work with them."
Updated: May 2011