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Opioid Epidemic, Solano County Board of Supervisors

Open Letter – Public voice in Solano under threat

Public voice in Solano policymaking under threat

by Ramón Castellblanch, May 6, 2023

A crowd of people in an auditorium raise their hands.
Ramón Castellblanch: Moving key meetings to business hours will stifle the public’s voice in policymaking. | Photo by Edwin Andrade on Unsplash

Over the years, Solano County has set up a number of advisory boards comprised of volunteers from the community. Underlying these boards’ establishment is the fact that County staff and its Board of Supervisors can’t know everything that they need to know to fairly administer County government. To promote sustainable agriculture, an agricultural advisory board was set up; to protect Solano’s unique historical documents, an historical records board was set up; to help plan the County response to its rising drug use disorder crisis, an alcohol and drug board was set up.

. . . the main factor in recommending continuation [of these boards] didn’t appear to be usefulness; it appeared to be whether or not advisory boards were state-mandated. [The supervisors] didn’t seem to consider their value to Solano; but to County administrators.

This year, a committee led by Supervisors John Vasquez and Monica Brown reviewed the value and continuation of these committees. In that review, the main factor in recommending continuation didn’t appear to be usefulness; it appeared to be whether or not advisory boards were state-mandated. They didn’t seem to consider their value to Solano; but to County administrators.

The Brown-Vasquez ad hoc committee met with none of the advisory boards that it was evaluating. Still at the Board of Supervisors’ May 2 meeting they recommended a blanket termination of all those that were not state mandated with one exception: the Nut Tree Airport committee. Why they that committee was spared may be indicated by its agenda: it actively works to help businesses at the airport.

The particular rationale for terminating the Alcohol & Drug Advisory Board (ADAB) was that the Mental Health Advisory Board could do its work fighting Solano’s opioid epidemic. But, a check of MHAB minutes over the past months shows nothing in them about fighting the epidemic. Further, the MHAB meets during business hours, cutting down public voice. At the hearing, Supervisor Wanda Williams asked if current ADAB members would then be on the MHAB.  Despite asking several times, she couldn’t get a straight answer to her question, implying that the answer was, “no”.

While discussion of the Brown-Vasquez report implied that there was a state law requiring merger of MHAB and ADAB; there is no such law. State law does mandate counties to have a MHAB which would help explain why the MHAB wasn’t mentioned in Brown-Vasquez report. Another factor in the omission may be that Brown is a MHAB member.

The ADAB and Historical Records Commission were able to muster vigorous political defenses at the May 2 meeting and were given reprieves. A rationale for the ADAB’s retrieve was that it would give it time to merge with the MHAB, even though that merger was not assured nor justified.

The particular rationale for terminating the Alcohol & Drug Advisory Board (ADAB) was that the Mental Health Advisory Board could do its work fighting Solano’s opioid epidemic. But, a check of MHAB minutes over the past months shows nothing in them about fighting the epidemic. Further, the MHAB meets during business hours, cutting down public voice.

So, after the County behavioral health director had shut it down citing the recommendation of the ad hoc review committee, the ADAB is back in business. Its next regular meeting will be May 10 at 6 p.m.  As the County has discontinued facilitating online access to advisory board meetings (while maintaining online access to Board of Supervisors meetings), the in-person meeting will be held in Conference Room A of the classic County Events Center, 601 Texas St., Fairfield.  As the room seats over a hundred, there should be ample ventilation and space for attendees, providing some protection against COVID.

The top item on its new business agenda is BOS action re: ADAB.  As the County has also discontinued providing inexpensive meals to dinner-time advisory board meetings, ADAB members will provide them on a one-time basis.

Ramón Castellblanch (he/ him/ él) 
Professor Emeritus, Public Health
San Francisco State
SEE ALSO:
Clean Air Act, EPA, Martinez Refining Company

Toxicologists descend on Martinez after chemical dump

 

Toxicologists to determine if residents were poisoned

East Bay Times, by Katie Lauer, May 5, 2023

A picture of Martinez Refining Company in the distance with residences in the foreground.
People living near the Martinez Refining Company in Martinez are under a health advisory from the Contra Costa Health Services to not eat food grown in their gardens until they have tested or replaced their soil due to a refinery accidentally release of dust containing heavy metals in November | Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group

 

Tens of thousands of people living in and around the Martinez Refinery Company still don’t know for certain if — or to what extent — they were poisoned last November.

But five months after 24 tons of toxic, dusty residue from gasoline, diesel and jet fuel flowing through the refinery first showered down on its next-door neighbors, new soil samples collected this week may finally confirm what dangers still linger there by late May or early June, county health officials announced Thursday.

People living nearby were told in March to discard any food grown in gardens and fruit trees, just to be safe.

Last Thanksgiving, the company posted on Facebook that the fine white substance that blanketed cars, porches and plants over the holiday was from a “non-toxic”, “non-hazardous” and “naturally occurring” catalyst dust expelled from its facility on the edge of town.

But within a few days, the Contra Costa County Health Department alerted residents that the ashy grit actually contained aluminum, barium, chromium and other hazardous metals — chemicals that are linked to nausea, vomiting, respiratory issues, immune system dysfunction, cancer and even death.

People living nearby were told in March to discard any food grown in gardens and fruit trees, just to be safe.

On Thursday, TRC, a Concord-based environmental consulting firm, started collecting soil samples from 14 different sites neighboring the refinery, which is located at 3485 Pacheco Blvd. Toxicologists will now evaluate the extent of contamination that residents were exposed to through skin contact, inhalation or consumption of food grown in the ground, according to Laura Trozzolo, a senior human health risk assessor with TRC.

She said the soil sample locations were chosen based on a map of where the plume of particles likely landed, using models from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District created using residents’ observations and wind simulations.

Trozzolo said that neither the five-month delay in data collection — due to the county’s lengthy contracting procedures — nor the recent historic storms that drenched the area should negatively impact lab findings.

“If we’ve had any deposition that might have landed on the surface over time, we’re still going to be capturing that within that top six-inch soil layer,” Trozzolo said during a press conference Thursday afternoon. “We do believe that we’re still characterizing and capturing conditions that occurred during that November event.”

“We’re responsible, as the oversight committee, for holding the facility accountable.” — Nicole Heath, Director Contra Costa County’s Hazardous Materials Program

Nicole Heath, director of the county’s hazardous materials program, said a 1990s-era industrial safety ordinance allows them to initiate an independent investigation and community risk assessment any time there’s a “major chemical accident or release,” such as the Martinez Refinery Co. event.

She said that ordinance allows the county to form an oversight committee, which brings together elected officials, county staff and community members with representatives from the refinery and its labor force.

“An independent incident investigation will look at root cause analyses, which would then determine exactly what happened, why it happened and what can we do to prevent things like this from happening again,” Heath said, later adding that similar chemical releases happened twice before at the refinery in the early 2000s, which was owned by Shell at the time. “We’re responsible, as the oversight committee, for holding the facility accountable.”

Meanwhile, the Contra Costa District Attorney’s office opened up a case in January on the refinery’s failure to notify hazmat officials about the hazardous release, according to Matthew Kaufmann, the county’s deputy health director.

Kaufmann said that while the health department can invoice the refinery to reimburse expenses during their investigation, the DA will be in charge of deciding whether or not the Martinez Refining Company should be responsible for financially compensating residents who lost food and soil.

Physical remediation efforts are also stalled until the upcoming lab results are complete, Heath said.

In the meantime, the county is still recommending that residents impacted by the toxic dust avoid eating any produce planted in the soil. However, gardeners are also encouraged to plant new seeds, in the event that soil samples don’t uncover any hazards.

“We are waiting to have the information from the soil sampling and risk assessment from TRC so that we can provide the answers that we know the community is so desperately, desperately seeking,” Heath said. “These corrective actions are in such a nature that they are intended to prevent something similar from happening again.”

Check out the amazing ISO Archives on BenIndy. 

 

SEE ALSO:

Public Comment, Solano County Board of Supervisors, Vallejo Sun

Solano boards dissolved, restructured with little notice

Solano County board dissolves agriculture and anti-violence advisory committees

Screenshot with portraits of Solano County Board of Supervisors
On May 2, 2023, the Solano County Board of Supervisors voted to dissolve two advisory committees and restructure several others.

Vallejo Sun, by Ryan Geller, May 5, 2023

FAIRFIELD — The Solano County Board of Supervisors this week dissolved two advisory committees and restructured several others in an effort to transform how the board receives input from residents.

At Tuesday’s meeting in a close vote, the board disbanded the Agriculture Advisory Committee and unanimously dissolved a domestic abuse advisory committee known as the Solano Partnership Against Violence.

“It’s very disappointing that on a 3-2 vote they dissolved an important voice of agriculture. It’s just kind of sad,” said Ian Anderson, a member of the Agricultural Advisory Board and a fourth-generation farmer in Solano County.

The move is part of an annual evaluation the county conducts of advisory bodies and reports to voting members of the county board, who determine if there is an ongoing need for each board, commission or committee. An ad-hoc committee made up of supervisor John Vasquez and Monica Brown reviewed the evaluation and made recommendations to the full board to maintain, restructure or dissolve the advisory bodies.

Read the rest of this article at the Vallejo Sun site . . . 

 

SEE ALSO:

Benicia CA, Clean Water Action, EPA, Travis Air Force Base, Valero Benicia Refinery

Travis Air Force Base ordered to address dishonorable discharges

EPA Orders U.S. Air Force to Address Oil Discharge at Travis Air Force Base

May 4, 2023

Contact Information: John Senn (senn.john@epa.gov)

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued an emergency order to the U.S. Air Force to enhance and expedite measures to address an ongoing oil discharge into Union Creek from the Travis Air Force Base (Travis AFB) in Solano County, Calif. EPA has determined that a substantial threat exists to local waterbodies and shorelines because of the ongoing discharge and previous similar incidents on Travis AFB.

“This order is critical for ensuring that the Air Force addresses the oil discharge into Union Creek in a thorough and timely manner, and that no impacts to public health occur,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman. “EPA is committed to fully utilizing our authorities to make sure that the current oil discharge is stopped and similar incidents are prevented.”

The order, issued under the Clean Water Act, compels the Air Force take a series of steps to mitigate the oil discharge, including:

  • Utilizing oil spill recovery equipment and techniques to limit the spread of oil in Union Creek;
  • Investigating and mitigating the source of the oil;
  • Collecting and analyzing water and sediment samples in Union Creek; and
  • Implementing actions to prevent oil from entering the storm drain and creek.

The order also requires the Air Force to enter into a unified command structure that brings together the oil spill response expertise of federal, state and local governments to address the discharge. Agencies actively engaged in the response include EPA, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, and Solano County.

Oil discharges to Union Creek from Travis AFB were first identified by the Air Force as early as October 2021, but were not reported to EPA or the National Response Center until February 4, 2022. Since that time, the Air Force has made numerous notifications to the National Response Center regarding an oil sheen on Union Creek, including reporting a spill of jet fuel from a pipeline on the base on August 4, 2022. These spill notifications have continued to occur in 2023. EPA analyses of samples collected from the pipeline spill area and from the sheen on Union Creek indicate the contamination at both areas are likely from a common source. On December 21, 2022, the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Control Board sent the Air Force a notice of noncompliance for discharges of jet fuel to Union Creek.

The Air Force has yet to take action to identify and address the source of the oil discharge to Union Creek. The initial oil spill response efforts implemented by the Air Force at Travis AFB were limited, and these efforts were only upgraded after input from EPA and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Office of Spill Prevention and Response.

Learn more about EPA’s work at Travis Air Force Base.

Learn more about EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region. Connect with us on Facebook and on Twitter.