Tag Archives: Benicia Industrial Park

Valero Benicia Refinery closes investigation of ‘Hydrogen Sulfide Saturday’ – but Benicians are still waiting for answers

[Note from BenIndy: Valero’s 30-day report on the February 24 hydrocarbon spill, which was categorized as a “Level-3” incident due to the potential threat to human health, raised yet more concerns about the refinery’s promptness and openness in notifying the City and its residents of hazardous events. If liquid hydrocarbon was detected on Tank 1738’s roof at 4:13am, why was the City not informed “immediately,” as required by its 2019 Cooperation Agreement with Valero? What does “immediately” even mean, in this context? Questions about Valero’s emergency management and dedication to safeguarding the community, particularly when considering the health risks posed by hydrogen sulfide exposure, certainly linger. Additionally, Valero’s tweaking of the spill’s reported volume – which could be 83 or 35 gallons, depending – spotlights why enhanced regulatory oversight and wide-spanning improvements to notification requirements should be an urgent priority of the refinery, its regulators, and of course the City of Benicia. Once again, we urge readers to check out BISHO.org to learn more about the City’s push for an Industrial Safety Ordinance from the perspective of its supporters.]

Valero Benicia Refinery releases cause of Feb. 24 incident, closes investigation

Valero’s Benicia Refinery. | Pat Toth-Smith.

Vallejo Times-Herald, by Lynzie Lowe, March 24, 2024

The Valero Benicia Refinery released its required 30-day report on Monday to provide additional details about the Feb. 24 releasing of a foul odor into the city of Benicia, and announced that the investigation has been officially closed.

The incident began on Friday, Feb. 23 when a gas turbine in the Benicia Refinery Fluid Catalytic Cracker Unit tripped, causing an emergency shutdown procedures and rerouting to “slop system” tanks to take place. During this process, Tank 1738 was turned off at approximately 4:13 a.m. Feb. 24 after it was discovered that there was some liquid hydrocarbon on the roof of that tank.

By 5:30 a.m. the next morning, the report noted that the Benicia Refinery Fence-line monitors detected Hydrogen Sulfide above background levels Southwest of the Refinery that was accompanied by the signature odor of H2S, which accounted for the rotten egg smell that was present throughout the city of Benicia at that time.

“Refinery Operations began investigating the source of the odor and identified hydrocarbon on the roof of Tank 1738 at approximately 4:13 a.m. (Feb. 24) as the source,” read the report. “… Cleanup efforts began at approximately 1 p.m. and refinery personnel continued to clean material off of the tank roof until the majority of the material had been removed and there was insufficient daylight to continue. At the time the work stopped, odors were no longer being detected beyond the refinery fence-line. Operations resumed the next morning to continue spot cleaning the residue on the tank roof and cleanup was completed on Monday, Feb. 26.”

Refinery officials said their initial report estimated that there was approximately 83 gallons of refined hydrocarbon material.

“However, based on visual accounts from the personnel overseeing the cleanup of the material, it was noted that the material on the roof was a very light sheen and the roof of the tank was still visible through the sheen, indicating it was a very thin layer of liquid hydrocarbon,” read the report. “Based on the information on the sheen thickness and the area of the roof that had material, the estimate was revised to be approximately 35 gallons of hydrocarbon material. The bulk of the material removed from the roof was rainwater.”

According to the report, an investigation team – composed of managers, engineers and hourly operators from the facility – was formed two days after the incident occurred to determine the root cause and recommend corrective actions for the Feb. 24 event.

“Data was gathered from multiple sources, including equipment monitoring trends and accounts from personnel involved in the incident,” read the report.

According to the report, the investigation identified that the floating roof on Tank 1738 had slightly tilted, and was most likely caused by vapors entering the tank.

“The investigation team looked at the various sources of slop material that were routed to the tank during the event to identify potential sources of lighter hydrocarbon materials to the tank,” read the report. “From those potential source streams, there was insufficient data for the team to identify which stream was the conclusive source of the vapors.”

The investigation team did, however, determined that the volume of material on the roof was likely not significant enough to cause offsite impacts, and therefore a vapor release from the tank was suspected to have occurred.

“The investigation team also considered the possibility of other sources as the cause of the odor, but evidence from refinery fixed H2S monitors and the wind direction during the event provided evidence that the tank was the source of the odor,” read the report.

Because the investigative team believed that light hydrocarbon materials vaporized in Tank 1738 causing the roof tilt and atmospheric substances to be released, the Refinery will schedule a meeting on or before Sept. 30 with the City of Benicia and Solano County Certified Unified Program Agency to develop engineering solution for the potential slop sources and options for monitoring and alarms, procedural options, or other means to reducing potential for vapor carry under to tankage and to implement engineering solutions.

Further actions on how to proceed with corrective action will be discussed and acted on at that time but the investigation into the incident has now been closed, according to Refinery officials.


Other reporting on this recent refinery incident:

TONIGHT! Join one of two City of Benicia meetings to discuss industrial safety (5-6 or 6-7pm)

Industrial Safety Ordinance Development Community Meeting
Two Options: In Person or Virtual

The Benicia City Council has appointed a Council Subcommittee consisting of Vice Mayor Terry Scott and Councilmember Kari Birdseye, with Fire Chief Josh Chadwick as the appointed staff member, to create an Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance (ISO) for the City of Benicia. As part of the ISO development process, the subcommittee is conducting public outreach, gathering input from key stakeholders, and consulting with subject matter experts in the field of industrial safety.

As part of the public outreach process, the subcommittee is hosting a series of community outreach meetings. The first option is an in-person meeting at the Benicia Public Library on Tuesday, March 26. Due to the size of the Dona Benicia room, there will be two sessions of the same content: one at 5 p.m. and one at 6 p.m. Please attend only one session to allow for more participation.

There will also be a virtual community outreach meeting with the same content on Wednesday, April 3 from 6 -7 p.m. To join the meeting, visit https://tinyurl.com/yxb39xv6 and use passcode 162947.

To learn more about the project and the public engagement process, please visit the City’s public engagement website, www.EngageBenicia.com.

City of Benicia to hold public meetings about industrial safety and oversight on March 26 (in person) and April 3 (virtual)

[Note from BenIndy: Please save the dates so you can share your ideas and opinions on the extremely important topic of industrial safety and oversight; you can visit the Benicia Industrial Health and Safety (BISHO) Working Group’s webpage at BISHO.org to learn more about the push for Benicia to adopt an industrial safety ordinance (ISO) from the perspective of supporters. We can’t find much from the perspective of opponents yet, although that’s sure to be coming soon. This message came from City of Benicia This Week (COBTW), a weekly newsletter from the City Manager of of Benicia that is sent out on Monday mornings so Benicians can see what’s coming up for the week and sometimes beyond. We encourage every Benician to sign up to have it delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning – visit this page for instructions on how to subscribe. Please also note the introduction of Benicia’s new public portal for public participation, EngageBenicia.com.]

Industrial Safety Ordinance Development Community Meeting
Two Options: In Person or Virtual

The Benicia City Council has appointed a Council Subcommittee consisting of Vice Mayor Terry Scott and Councilmember Kari Birdseye, with Fire Chief Josh Chadwick as the appointed staff member, to create an Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance (ISO) for the City of Benicia. As part of the ISO development process, the subcommittee is conducting public outreach, gathering input from key stakeholders, and consulting with subject matter experts in the field of industrial safety.

As part of the public outreach process, the subcommittee is hosting a series of community outreach meetings. The first option is an in-person meeting at the Benicia Public Library on Tuesday, March 26. Due to the size of the Dona Benicia room, there will be two sessions of the same content: one at 5 p.m. and one at 6 p.m. Please attend only one session to allow for more participation.

There will also be a virtual community outreach meeting with the same content on Wednesday, April 3 from 6 -7 p.m. To join the meeting, visit https://tinyurl.com/yxb39xv6 and use passcode 162947.

To learn more about the project and the public engagement process, please visit the City’s public engagement website, www.EngageBenicia.com.

Benicia Herald columnist Stephen Golub’s questions about Valero’s ‘Hydrogen Sulfide Saturday’

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub.

By Stephen Golub, first appearing in the Benicia Herald on March 1, 2024

Before I start, here’s a reminder that ON MARCH 5 AT 6 PM THE BENICIA CITY COUNCIL WILL HEAR A BRIEF REPORT ON A COUNCIL SUBCOMMITTEE’S PROGRESS IN CRAFTING AN INDUSTRIAL SAFETY ORDINANCE (ISO) FOR BENICIA. THIS PRESENTS A CHANCE TO SPEAK OUT IN FAVOR OF A STRONG ISO THAT WILL ENABLE THE CITY TO BETTER PREVENT, MONITOR AND ADDRESS DANGEROUS EVENTS AT TEXAS-BASED VALERO’S REFINERY HERE, RANGING FROM POISONS IN THE AIR TO POTENTIAL EXPLOSIONS AT THE FACILITY. You can attend and voice your support in person at or via Zoom. The link to the meeting’s agenda and Zoom is at https://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas.

By the way, a big thanks to Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick and our Fire Department for their efforts to alert Benicians about Saturday’s incident at the Valero Refinery, particularly since it resulted in the release of the dangerous neurotoxin Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) into our air. While, as suggested below, the incident and the reporting more than ever demonstrate the need for an ISO, those efforts are nonetheless appreciated.

Thanks, too, to the Valero personnel who labored to clean up that mess, perhaps at risk to their own health. Of course, this does not let the Valero refinery or the corporation’s Texas headquarters off the hook for this dangerous event  – or for many other accidents and violations. But the workers who work to mitigate such harm merit praise. In fact, an ISO could benefit them as well as the rest of us.

So far, based on some very good reporting by Benicia Herald editor Galen Kusic and other sources, we have some initial knowledge about what happened. But dozens of questions remain.

For now, I’ll just address a few questions mainly raised by Kusic’s February 28 article and data shared by the Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program (BCAMP), a local non-profit that (as its website states) “has been established to monitor local air quality in real-time, operate a website, and provide education on health as related to air quality.” (For more information on BCAMP, here’s the group’s site: https://www.fenceline.org/bcamp/)

  1. As Kusic’s article states, “It isn’t clear as to why alerts went out at 7:40 a.m. when H2S was discovered on Tank 1738 at 6:08 a.m. and H2S was detected in the air as early as 4:30 a.m.” In fact, as noted by BCAMP, Valero’s own monitoring system indicated alarming levels of H2S in the air as early as 4 a.m. And BCAMP data indicates a spike in H2S hours earlier than that.

So why the delay in alerting the public?

  1. What’s more, the current (and quite weak) City of Benicia – Valero Cooperation Agreement incorporates the requirement that the Benicia Fire Department must be notified immediately if there is a release or a threatened release of a hazardous substance that could harm people’s health. It certainly does not sound like Valero provided immediate notification – which to my simple mind, means as soon as possible.

Why was that the case?

  1. As stated in the Herald article, when asked about the delay, “Valero Benicia Refinery Director of Community Relations and Government Affairs Paul Adler responded, ‘In order to answer your first question, I suggest that you review the Public Information website along with that policy which defines the requirements of notifications.’”

I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer a straightforward answer to a straightforward inquiry about an urgent public health matter, rather than being shunted off to a website.

Why not provide that?

  1. Did the first information the Fire Department received about the incident come from the public reporting the “rotten eggs” odor of H2S in the air or from Valero? And if not Valero, why was that the case?

5.  BCAMP data reported an alarming spike in H2S in the air during the late afternoon on Saturday, supposedly after the worst of the incident had passed. Were we safe at that time?

I’ll note that I know one individual whose asthma was apparently greatly aggravated by this incident (though this is not a matter of medical certainty) and two others who reported feeling ill, all on the west side of town. Not scientific proof of danger, but not something to be ignored.

Again, these are just a few questions prompted by Valero’s release of H2S on Saturday. Coming on top of many Valero violations and other incidents, they point to the need for a far stronger way of protecting the safety and health of our kids, our seniors and our entire community. We can start by showing support for an ISO at the City Council meeting on March 5.


Other reporting on this recent refinery incident: