Monthly Archives: February 2022

Air pollution, Air quality violations, Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Benzene, Keeping Watch on Earth News, KQED, Local Regulation, Toluene, Valero Benicia Refinery

‘First I Had Heard of It’: Valero’s Benicia Refinery Secretly Released Toxic Chemicals for Years

The Valero refinery in Benicia (Craig Miller KQED)

Air district holding a virtual public workshop on the Valero releases on Thursday (tonight – 3/24)

KQED News, by Ted Goldberg, February 24, 2022
[BenIndy Editor: More at SAVE THESE DATES…  – R.S.]

Officials in Benicia and Solano County want to know why Valero’s oil refinery there was able to release excessive levels of hazardous chemicals for more than 15 years before regional air regulators discovered the emissions — and why those regulators failed for another three years to alert local communities to the potential danger.

A Bay Area Air Quality Management District investigation launched in November 2018 found that one refinery unit produced pollutant emissions that were, on average, hundreds of times higher than levels permitted by the agency.

The emissions consisted of a variety of “precursor organic compounds,” or POCs, including benzene and other toxic chemicals.

An air district rule limits the release of such compounds to 15 pounds a day and a maximum concentration of 300 parts per million. The district’s investigation found that from December 2015 through December 2018, POC emissions averaged 5,200 pounds a day — nearly 350 times the daily limit. The average POC concentration recorded during the first year of that period was 19,148 parts per million, more than 60 times the level set by the agency.

Those findings led the air district to issue a notice of violation to Valero in March 2019. But it wasn’t until late last month that the agency went public and announced it would seek to impose an abatement order requiring the refinery to halt the excessive pollution releases.

“That was the first I had heard of it,” said Benicia Mayor Steve Young, one of four members of the city council who say they want to know why the community was not told earlier.

“We should have been notified by the air district when this was first discovered in 2019, and certainly while negotiations with Valero were going on,” he said.

The Solano County agency responsible for inspecting the Valero refinery and investigating incidents there says it was also left out of the loop.

Chris Ambrose, a hazardous materials specialist with the county’s Environmental Health Division, said in an email his agency “was never formally notified by or requested to participate in BAAQMD’s emissions investigation.”

A health risk assessment carried out by the air district in 2019 found that the refinery’s release of benzene and other pollutants posed an elevated risk of cancer and chronic health threats and violated several agency regulations.

Solano County Health Officer Bela Matyas told KQED that because the wind often pushes refinery emissions away from Benicia, the refinery’s prolonged pollution releases didn’t likely pose any extreme risk to residents.

“But it doesn’t excuse the process. It doesn’t excuse the failure to adhere to standards and it doesn’t provide any excuse for the fact that the city of Benicia was put at some risk as a result of these emissions,” Matyas said.

The air district, which plans to hold a virtual public workshop on the Valero releases on Thursday night, is defending its decision to not alert local officials earlier.

“To protect the integrity of the air district’s investigation and ensure that Valero is held accountable, we were not able to notify the city of Benicia until the investigation was concluded,” district spokesperson Kristine Roselius said.

“Going forward, the air district is committed to additional transparency around these types of ongoing violations, to putting companies in front of our hearing board in a public forum where information can be shared, and working to ensure these types of cases are brought into that forum as quickly as possible,” she said.

The hearing board Roselius referred to is an independent panel created under state law to rule on issues that arise at individual facilities that the air district regulates. The board is scheduled to consider the district’s abatement order at an all-day public session on March 15.

At issue is the infrastructure that produces hydrogen for the facility. Hydrogen is integral to several refining processes, but demand for it throughout the refinery fluctuates. When the supply of hydrogen in the system is higher than the demand for it, the refinery vents the unneeded gas into the atmosphere.

Related Coverage

At issue is the infrastructure that produces hydrogen for the facility. Hydrogen is integral to several refining processes, but

The air district says that soon after it launched its investigation in late 2018, it discovered that Valero had known since 2003 that the refinery was venting hydrogen that contained a range of regulated pollutants, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.

In 2019, Valero devised a workaround that reduced emissions significantly but still failed to bring them within allowable limits.

The air district’s proposed abatement order would set up a timeline for the company to design and build a new vent system to bring the facility into compliance, with the work completed no later than the facility’s next “turnaround” — the industry term for a refinery-wide maintenance shutdown.

The Benicia City Council has asked Valero executives and air district officials to answer questions at its March 1 council meeting.

Mayor Young, Vice Mayor Tom Campbell and council members Christina Strawbridge and Lionel Largaespada all say they want to know how the emissions went undetected for so long.

“I’d like to know how it was missed when Valero has had two or three full plant turnarounds since 2003 and the air board is out there every week,” Campbell said.

A Valero representative responded to a request for comment by referring KQED to a city of Benicia press release that includes the air district’s proposed abatement order.

The air district says it’s consulting with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether the Valero releases violated federal law. It’s unclear when the EPA learned of the refinery problems.

The Benicia facility has been the subject of repeated scrutiny for past problems, leading to investigations by not only air regulators but also county hazardous materials specialists and the California Public Utilities Commission.

Air Quality, Benicia CA, Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program (BCAMP), Valero Benicia Refinery

Benicia Community Webinar – BCAMP Unveiling on March 3rd!

Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program-Real-time air quality data and more!

Email notice, February 24, 2024

It’s almost time for the Benicia Community Air Monitoring webinar on March 3rd, 2022 at 7 pm. Please be sure to preregister by clicking on this link: webinar registration page—or use the QR code in the flyer (see below).

This air monitoring station has been in the works for years. Finally, we’ll  be able to see what is in our air.

See you there!

 Kathy Kerridge
Interim Chair

Air Monitoring, Air monitors, Air pollution, Air Quality, Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program (BCAMP), Keeping Watch on Earth News

Benicia Community Air Monitoring – Meeting Moved to March 3

City of Benicia Announcement, February 22, 2022
[Editor: See also: Save these dates for important meetings on Air District charges against Valero for continued air pollution violations – R.S.]

Air Monitoring Meeting Moved to March 3

The Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program meeting mentioned in the 02/14/22 edition of City of Benicia This Week has been moved to Thursday, March 3 at 7 p.m.  Original details below…

Air Monitor Now Operational

Following recent news of Stipulated Order between Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Valero Benicia Refinery, the City Manager shares the following information:

The Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program (BCAMP*) air monitoring station is now operational.

Real-time air quality data can be accessed at this website: http://beniciacommunityairmonitoringprogram.org/.

The website provides real time and historical air quality data for the following pollutants: particulate matter, black carbon, sulfur dioxide, ozone, benzene, toluene, and xylene. A new hydrogen sulfide monitor will soon be added. The website also provides additional information including:

    • A map showing the location of the monitoring station relative to potential sources and current wind speed and direction.
    • A tab for “How to Report a Problem” with important links and phone numbers
    • A “Resource” tab that provides some background about BCAMP and Argos Scientific. Argos is the main contractor for BCAMP that provides the technical support for the instruments and data transfer to the website. This page also has links to relevant community organizations as well as local elected officials and regulators.
Learn more at BCAMP’s Unveiling Webinar:
February 24 Thursday, March 3, 7 p.m.
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IThYBb9JTRuj-ChO79TAxA
*BCAMP is a non-profit established for the benefit of the community to monitor ambient air quality in Benicia. BCAMP’s mission is to sample and measure local air in real time; report and archive raw data on the website; and provide education on health risks as related to air quality.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, Culture war, Democratic Party

Gavin Newsom’s message for Democrats in 2022: Don’t be afraid of a fight.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in Del Mar, Calif., on Feb. 18.(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune/AP)

Gavin Newsom isn’t afraid of a fight. Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to emulate that.

The Washington Post, By Jonathan Capehart, February 22, 2022

California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t afraid of y’all. And by “y’all,” I mean the gun manufacturers and Republican culture warriors who have gotten quite used to the defensive crouch of Newsom’s fellow Democrats.

Newsom’s unabashed assertiveness came through when I interviewed him last week at the Del Mar Fairgrounds outside San Diego, where he announced a bill making good on his promise in December to use the model of Texas’s recent antiabortion law — which the Supreme Court declined to block — to go after gunmakers in his own state.

“The Texas abortion law is an abomination. It’s outrageous what the Supreme Court did, but they did it. They opened a door that is going to put women’s lives at risk. And we’re going to go through that same door to save people’s lives,” Newsom said. The California bill would award $10,000 and attorney’s fees to private citizens who turn in people illegally selling, manufacturing or distributing assault weapons or ghost guns.

“We’re going after these guys. We’re putting them on the defensive. I don’t hate gun owners. I don’t hate guns. I hate violence,” Newsom said. “I can’t take it anymore. No one can take it anymore. How many times have I been to a damn press conference where you heard the same words? And the words are no longer ‘thoughts and prayers.’ It’s that ‘I’m sick and tired of saying “thoughts and prayers.”’

Anticipating the inevitable challenges to the legislation, Newsom made clear that he isn’t afraid of the fight to come. “There’s no principled way the U.S. Supreme Court cannot uphold California’s law on assault weapons and ghost guns,” Newsom said. “So we’re calling the question, and we’re moving aggressively … and we’re getting serious about this in a way we haven’t in the past.”

Newsom’s willingness to fight Republicans on their turf is exactly what Democrats need to replicate. Stand strong in your beliefs and fight for them, even if it makes friends nervous and angers the other side. The governor has always operated this way.

That’s why I couldn’t resist asking Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, what he thought about the overwhelming recall last week of three of that city’s school board members who had largely focused on stripping schools of “objectionable” names. He wasn’t the least bit surprised by what happened. Acting on your passions and beliefs must still be in line with why folks put you in office. “If you are focused more on renaming things than focusing on fundamentally getting to the nuts and bolts of the job that you are hired to do, that’s a problem,” Newsom said.

But because this happened in the bluest of cities in the bluest of states, is it a warning sign to Democrats about the excesses of that dreaded term, “wokeness”? Nope, Newsom said: “I don’t know how one defines it. I know how one politicizes it.”

By today’s standards, Newsom could have been accused of “wokeness” in 2004 when, as mayor, he issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of state and federal law. Everyone was angry with him, especially Democrats who were furious he willfully waded into the latest front of the culture war during a presidential election year. But Newsom never wavered then and has no regrets now.

“Is that the definition of wokeness? I thought it was the right thing to do,” Newsom said. The 2015 Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry validated his moral conviction and political courage. And he’s urging his fellow Democrats to be similarly bold about the big issues of today.

“We all just need to … recognize what we’re up against, which is mishegoss, which is full-time propaganda coming from a disciplined far extreme right that will continue to racially prime, continue to promote these cultural wars in any way, shape or form,” Newsom said. “I mean, they’re banning books.”

In the face of this, the governor who successfully crushed a Republican-led recall effort against him last year said that Democrats must “address these things a little bit more head on, a little bit more forcefully.” That means fighting back on the terms set by Republicans.

More Democrats need to speak this way. It tells Republicans they aren’t as feared as they once were. More importantly, it shows the base that Democrats will no longer cower the way to which we’ve become accustomed. They are willing to fight like Republicans for what they believe in.

“That’s what we’re doing on guns,” Newsom said. “We’re leaning in. And, again, I’m not naive to their success. But it’s an old playbook here. And so let’s not all act surprised as Democrats and victims around this.”