Category Archives: Bay Area Air Quality Management District

Bay Area Air Quality Management District, California Air Resources Board (CARB), California Regulation, Climate Change, Environmental Impacts, Local Regulation, Public Health

Bay Area Air District sets new goals for 2050

Repost from The Contra Costa Times

Bay Area Air Quality Management District adopts plan to control greenhouse gases

By Denis Cuff Contra Costa Times
Posted: 04/03/2014

It has fought to rein in smog and smoke for years, but now the Bay Area’s air pollution board is tackling a new challenge: reducing greenhouse gases.

A plan to speed up work on reducing global warming gases from the region’s businesses, industries and residents was adopted Wednesday by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Board.

Under one of the 10 measures, the district will review its industrial and business pollution rules to decide if changes are needed to cut down on carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases.

Any changes in regional rules would be closely coordinated with the state Air Resources Board, the leader of the state’s climate control effort, air district officials said.

“It’s very important we complement what the state is doing and not cause confusion or conflict,” said Henry Hilken, the air district’s director of planning and research.

If rule changes are made, they likely will focus on making industries change operations to make less pollution, rather than to control it afterwards, he added.

The clean air agency also will increase its technical advice to cities and counties considering local climate action measures such as setting local building energy efficiency standards. The district also will help seek funding for those local agencies.

To prepare for the extra workload, the air district later this year will propose adding four new employees to work on greenhouse gas issues.

Under the plan, the district will monitor the region’s progress toward meeting state goals for reducing greenhouse gas levels 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

If the region isn’t moving fast enough, the district will announce it, then coordinate efforts by city, county, state, federal and regional efforts to close the gap.

Under old estimates yet to be updated, the Bay Area in 1990 generated some 87.7 million tons of greenhouse gases equivalent to carbon dioxide. An 80 percent cut would drop that to 17.5 metric tons.

Those figures are likely to be modified when the air district updates its estimates, officials said.

Actions to control greenhouse gases will not only protect the earth from overheating, but also help to reduce Bay Area smog and fine particle pollution, Hilken said.

Most of this plan is geared at actions to be taken in the next two years, before more permanent measures are adopted in 2015.

Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Local Regulation, Valero

Valero fined $183,000 for 2010 incidents

Repost from The Contra Costa Times
[Editor: These fines are for violations in 2010.  In October of 2013, Valero agreed to pay $300,300 in fines for violations occurring in 2011 and 2012 (see SFGate story, Benicia Herald story).  At that time, Mayor Patterson and I asked the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (independently) to consider making the fines available to the local setting where the violations occurred, a practice not without precedent.  I never a definitive answer on my request from Eric Stevenson, the District’s Director of Technical  Serevices.  He did inform me in November 2013 that the District had scheduled a meeting with Mayor Patterson to discuss this request.  I wonder what happened?  It makes sense to me that the City of Benicia could finance better air monitoring using these funds.  – RS]

Benicia refinery hit with $183,000 fine for air quality violations

(Vallejo) Times-Herald   03/28/2014 04:56:30 PM PDT

BENICIA — Valero has agreed to pay $183,000 to settle air quality violations at its Benicia refinery, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced Friday.

The civil penalty covers seven notices of violation that the air district issued to Valero in 2011 for incidents that occurred in 2010, according to an air district news release.

The violations were related to a December 2010 upset of Valero’s fluid catalytic cracking unit, which converts heavy gas oils into gasoline and other lighter compounds. The upset resulted in intermittent violations of opacity and particulate standards at Valero’s main stack over a 10-day period, as well as violations of carbon monoxide and sulfur standards at other affected equipment, the district said.

All settlement funds will be used to fund air district activities such as the inspection and enforcement activities that led to the settlement.

Bakken Shale, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Bay Area Refineries, Public Health, Public Safety, Rail Safety, Rail tanker cars, Tar sands crude

Environmental groups sue Bay Area Air Quality Management District

Repost from KPIX 5, CBS SF Bay Area

Lawsuit Filed Over Fracked Oil Trains In The Bay Area After KPIX 5 Report

March 28, 2014


RICHMOND (KPIX 5) — Two weeks ago, KPIX 5 discovered trains carrying explosive fracked crude oil have been rolling into the Bay Area under everyone’s radar. On Thursday, four environmental groups have filed a lawsuit over it, calling the crude by rail terminal illegal.

Earthjustice attorney Suma Peesapati had no idea the long trains were coming into the Bay Area until she saw KPIX 5’s story.

“I was flabbergasted,” Peesapati said. “This just happened under the cover of night.”

Fracked crude oil from the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota can result in deadly explosions in a derailment. Yet we discovered the energy company Kinder Morgan started bringing 100-car trains loaded with the oil right into the heart of Richmond six months ago, all without having to go through any environmental review.

“We can’t hold up their permit because there is public opposition. As long as somebody doesn’t increase their emissions, we give them a permit,” Jim Karas of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District told KPIX 5.

Karas said since the rail yard was previously unloading ethanol trains, switching to fracked crude oil was no big deal. “Very small deal, very well controlled, very few emissions,” he said.

According to permit documents obtained by KPIX 5, Kinder Morgan claimed the operation “will not increase emissions beyond currently permitted levels”, and requested that the air district treat it “as an alteration, not a modification”.

“This hardly a minor alteration. I mean this fundamentally changes the nature of the operation and the environmental impacts,” said Peesapati.

Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of 4 environmental groups: Communities for a Better Environment, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The complaint claims the Air District’s “clandestine approval” of the project “ignores the well-known and potentially catastrophic risk to public health and safety.”

“These trains are rolling and they pose an immediate threat to the local community,” said Peesapati.

“It’s really a slap in the face against the people of Richmond,” said Andres Soto with Communities for a Better Environment. He hopes the courts will take action quickly. And not just because of the danger of explosions.

“There’s a number of chemicals that are constituents in this crude oil that are carcinogenic,” he said.

Adding to the risk, Soto said the tanker trucks that deliver the crude to local refineries. “It’s going to take three trucks to unload one train car and that is an extreme expansion of the number of trips by diesel trucks on our city streets and on our state highways.”

KPIX 5 reached out to Kinder Morgan and the Air District Thursday night. Both said they don’t comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit calls on the Air District to pull Kinder Morgan’s permit, and asks the judge to issue an injunction that would shut down the terminal until a full environmental impact report is completed.