Category Archives: US Environmental Protection Agency

EAST BAY TIMES: Benicia: Valero to pay $157,800 penalty over toxic chemicals

Repost from the East Bay Times

Benicia: Valero to pay $157,800 penalty over toxic chemicals

By Denis Cuff, October 5, 2016, 5:53 pm
The Valero refinery is photographed in Benicia, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2014. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
The Valero refinery is photographed in Benicia, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2014. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)

BENICIA – The Valero oil refinery has agreed to pay $157,800 in federal penalties for improper management and storage of toxic chemicals and hazardous waste, the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday.

The violations included illegal disposal of benzene, a carcinogen, into an unlined storm water retention pond and not alerting the public about all of its toxic chemical releases, EPA officials reported.

In addition to paying the penalties, Valero will modify its piping operations by June 2017 to prevent an estimated 5,000 pounds of benzene from being released into the atmosphere over the next 10 years, officials said.

Evidence of the violations were detected during an EPA inspection of the Benicia refinery in May 2014 to assess compliance with the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

Additional violations included the company’s failure to determine if solid waste generated at the refinery was hazardous; the failure to maintain and operate to minimize risks of a toxic release; and failure to maintain complete and accurate records, the EPA said.

EPA says oil train operator violated federal Clean Air Act at Albany facility

Repost from Politico New York

EPA says oil train operator violated federal Clean Air Act at Albany facility

By Scott Waldman, 08/17/16 05:29 AM EDT
Railroad oil tankers line up in Albany, N.Y.
Railroad oil tankers line up in Albany, N.Y. | AP Photo/Mike Groll

ALBANY — One of the main companies that transports crude oil through New York has violated federal clean air standards and may face significant fines, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents obtained by POLITICO.

Last month, the EPA issued a notice to Global Companies LLC, saying the company violated the federal Clean Air Act at its oil transportation facility in Albany. According to the documents, Global could face fines of more than $25,000 a day and may have to obtain a new permit for one of its main East Coast shipping routes.

According to the EPA, Global intentionally under-reported air emissions at the facility when it was granted permission to almost quadruple the amount of crude it could transport through Albany.

In 2012, after Global received state permission to increase the amount of crude it transported through Albany from about 500,000 gallons a year to almost 2 billion gallons, the company reported an increase in air emissions of 39.5 tons per year of volatile organic compounds.

But after a months-long investigation, the EPA determined the amount Global reported was far less than what it was actually emitting.

The increase Global claimed is just under the 40-tons-per-year limit that would require a new set of air permits, and likely lead to costly equipment upgrades and additional project delays.

“Global violated the (Clean Air) Act and the federally enforceable New York state implementation plan by increasing the throughput of crude oil at its petroleum storage facility located at 50 Church Street, Albany, New York without complying with the new source review requirements of the New York SIP,” wrote Dore LaPosta, director of the Division of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance at the EPA.

Edward Faneuil, Global’s executive vice president, denied the facility was out of compliance.

“With respect to the Notice of Violation issued by the EPA alleging violations of the Clean Air Act at its Albany facility, Global Partners is in compliance with regulatory and permitting requirements at that facility, including requirements under the CAA,” Faneuil said in a statement Tuesday. “We remain fully committed to operating all of our facilities in a safe, legal and environmentally responsible manner, and we will vigorously defend ourselves against any claims to the contrary.”

Global needs to obtain air permits for the facilities it uses during the crude oil transportation process, which includes equipment to offload oil train tankers.

Albany has become a national hub for crude oil trains, which bring the product from North Dakota and transport it to refineries along the East Coast. Public scrutiny of oil train safety has increased after a series of accidents in recent years, including one in July 2013 that killed dozens of people in Canada. In Albany, the oil trains run on tracks that are located next to a public housing facility and have been stored adjacent to a playground.

On Wednesday, EPA officials will meet with local residents affected by the oil train surge in Albany.

The Cuomo administration has allowed the oil transportation companies to increase the amount of crude they bring through Albany. Since it received permission to increase the amont of oil it transports, Global has also sought to add a crude oil heater that would allow it to bring in thick tar sands. However, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has delayed a decision on that proposal and is now locked in a legal battle with the company.

Local residents, including many who live at the public housing project, have complained that emissions from the Albany facility are causing health problems. In 2014, state regulators determined that the air quality in the area was not harmful.

The EPA investigation echoes claims of a lawsuit filed earlier this year by Albany County and a coalition of environmental groups, which contend Global Companies failed to obtain the proper air permits for its crude-handling facility at the Port of Albany. In the lawsuit, the groups claim Global failed to install proper pollution controls when it increased the amount of crude oil handled at the facility.

View the EPA document here: http://politi.co/2bpiO6R

DESMOGBLOG: Science advisors tell EPA not to downplay fracking-related water contamination

Repost from DeSmogBlog

EPA’s Science Advisors Tell Agency Not to Downplay Fracking-Related Water Contamination

By Sharon Kelly, August 14, 2016 – 17:12

On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisors finished their review of EPA‘s national study on fracking and sternly rebuked the EPA for claiming that its draft study had found no evidence of “widespread, systemic” impacts to drinking water.

The EPA had not provided the evidence to support that claim, the Science Advisory Board (SAB) peer review panel found. The phrase was widely quoted in the press, but appeared only in a press release and the Executive Summary of EPA‘s draft study of the impacts of fracking on drinking water.

Environmentalists challenged EPA‘s summary of the data, arguing that the agency’s conclusion wrongly ignored the thousands of spills, leaks, and other problems described in the body of the draft report.

The science advisory panel, in a letter signed by 26 of the 30 panelists, agreed. “The SAB is concerned that these major findings as presented within the Executive Summary are ambiguous and appear inconsistent with the observations, data, and levels of uncertainty presented and discussed in the body of the draft Assessment Report,” the SAB wrote.

The SAB finds that the EPA did not support quantitatively its conclusion about lack of evidence for widespread, systemic impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources,” the SAB wrote, “and did not clearly describe the system(s) of interest (e.g., groundwater, surface water), the scale of impacts (i.e., local or regional), nor the definitions of ‘systemic’ and ‘widespread.’”

The SAB‘s 180-page letter makes clear that if the Obama administration claims that fracking has not led to “widespread, systemic impacts” to water, it bears the burden of proving that their assessment is actually supported by evidence.

The SAB concludes that if the EPA retains this conclusion, the EPA should provide quantitative analysis that supports its conclusion that hydraulic fracturing has not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources,” the reviewers wrote.

Environmental advocates welcomed the science panel’s findings as vindication.

EPA didn’t provide/have a scientific basis for its controversial line, and today EPA SAB is calling them out for that,” Dr. Hugh MacMillan, a senior researcher for Food and Water Watch, told DeSmog in an email.

The controversial language from EPA‘s 998-page draft fracking study‘s Executive Summary had said: “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms [which included wastewater spills or treatment problems as well as underground water contamination] have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”

The EPA was asked by Congress to investigate fracking’s impacts on drinking water back in 2009.

That “widespread, systemic” language matters beyond headlines. When state and federal regulators decide whether fracking requires regulation or restrictions like bans, it matters enormously whether the EPA says that problems with fracking are severe enough to require action.

“This, of course, goes to the very heart of the issue, because it’s one thing if, occasionally, there have been some unfortunate accidents — but another if there is something inherent to the entire process of unconventional gas development that harms drinking water,” the Washington Post explained in its coverage of the SAB‘s scathing letter.

The EPA‘s study had long been under fire for apparent coziness between researchers and the shale industry. Repeatedly, news outlets obtained drafts of the EPA‘s study plans that showed a powerful industry influence over the study and a steady narrowing of the study’s scope — which would mean that real-world problems would not make it into EPA‘s on-paper review of fracking’s potential hazards.

“'[Y]ou guys are part of the team here,’ one EPA representative wrote to Chesapeake Energy as they together edited study planning documents in October 2013, ‘please write things in as you see fit,’” DeSmog previously reported.

The SAB science advisory panel, which worked for over a year on reviewing EPA‘s draft study, included scientists from academia, government, and the industry. Four of the 30 advisors dissented, writing their own opinion. “While the report could have articulated the agency’s statistical assessment more clearly, there has not been any facts or evidence demonstrating a systemic or widespread impact to existing drinking water resources or other water resources,” the four dissenters wrote.

So what is in the body of EPA‘s study that was left out of its executive summary? DeSmog reviewed and found that the EPA described numerous problems, including the following:

Meanwhile, accidents keep on happening, both above-ground and under, by the hundreds or thousands. One in a dozen spills by drillers wasn’t contained before it hit drinking water sources – and the spills that hit water supplies tended to be much larger spills than those that didn’t (p. 38). Although gas wells are generally depicted as having numerous layers of concrete and steel casings to prevent the gas, wastewater and chemicals inside the well from interacting with the environment outside it, two thirds of wells had no cement along some portions of their bores (p. 275), an EPA review found. And conditions underground, which can leave wells under high pressure, high temperatures or in “corrosive environments” sometimes caused well casings to have “life expectancies” that run out in under a decade (p. 281) – but the oil and gas industry has told investors that shale wells are expected to keep pumping for 30 years or more.

In its letter yesterday, the SAB peer-review panel also took the EPA to task for neglecting some of the nation’s highest-profile cases of water contamination, like Pavillion, WY, Parker County, TX and Dimock, PA. People from those towns whose water was contaminated had testified before the SAB in November, questioning the panel about the EPA‘s apparent decision to ignore what had happened to their communities.

“I feel that the EPA abandoned me,” Steven Lipsky, of Parker County, Texas, who faces a defamation lawsuit from driller Range Resources after EPA dropped its investigation into the flammable water at his home, told the SAB in November.

In its peer review, the SAB called on EPA to include those three high-profile incidents and questioned the EPA‘s decision to zoom out the lens by focusing on “widespread” problems. ” These local-level potential impacts have the potential to be severe, and the final Assessment Report needs to better characterize and recognize the importance of local impacts, especially since locally important impacts are unlikely to be captured in a national -level summary of impacts,” the SABtold EPA.

On Thursday, oil and gas advocates sought to closely parse the SAB‘s language, suggesting that the EPA did not necessarily have to change its language. “The panel does not ask EPA to modify or eliminate its topline finding of ‘no widespread, systemic impacts’ to groundwater from fracking – it asks EPA to provide more details or a ‘quantitative analysis’ of how the agency came to that conclusion,” Energy in Depth wrote in a blog post on the study.

Dr. David Dzombak, a member of the SAB who helped prepare the SAB‘s opinion told reporters that the SAB was backing a call for the EPA to drop the “widespread, systemic” phrasing.

One option for the agency would be to drop that conclusion,” he told StateImpact. “The SAB is asking here for clarification of an ambiguous statement.”

In a statement, the EPA said it would take its peer-reviewer’s comments into consideration as it moved to finalize its study draft. “EPA will use the SAB’s final comments and suggestions, along with relevant literature published since the release of the draft assessment, and public comments received by the agency, to revise and finalize the assessment,” the EPA said.

Environmental groups called on the EPA to listen closely to the SAB‘s recommendations and to take action to address the problems that the EPA‘s draft study described.

“The science is in. EPA knows that fracking pollutes drinking water,” said Lauren Pagel, Policy Director for Earthworks. “Now is the time for us to move away from this dirty fossil fuel and replace it with clean energy that does not harm public health.”

EPA Website: On-scene Coordinator Updates for Alma Spill

Repost from The DOT-111 Reader
[Editor:  Many thanks to the folks at DOT-111.org for locating this EPA website, specific to the Alma, Wisconsin derailment – excellent details, photos and a GoogleEarth link.  FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: the EPA links to other On-Scene Coordinator updates here: http://www.epaosc.org/.  – RS]

EPA Website for Alma Spill

Nov9b

November 9, 2015 | EPA | When hazmat spills occur, the EPA assigns an on-scene coordinator.  The OSC provides updates to the spill on their website. For those wishing to follow EPA reports on the Alma spill, [you can follow along here.]


Here’s a sample of the photos available:

IMG_0458.JPG (11/8/2015) View of ethanol tankers in water