All posts by BenIndy

Clean Air Act, Martinez CA, Martinez Refining Company

Another flaring incident at troubled Martinez Refining Company; strong odor felt for miles (again)

[Note from BenIndy: On Tuesday, December 19, at 6pm, Benicia City Council will be considering taking the second step in a two-step process that would direct staff to examine bringing an Industrial Safety Ordinance to Benicia. Benicia residents have long wished for the same standards, mechanisms, and systems of care afforded to Martinez through Contra Costa’s Industrial Safety Ordinance –standards, mechanisms, and systems that at least appear to generate genuine accountability and transparency when incidents like this occur. After allegations of decades of deceit (or ignorant noncompliance, if we’re being generous) from Valero’s Benicia Refinery and its ongoing failure to meet essential air quality standards, Benicia’s community has issued a vote of no-confidence in a mostly toothless Cooperation Agreement between the City and Valero, and Valero’s capability or willingness to be proactive and truthful about its ongoing violations and incidents . . . and with it, the community has issued a vote of very-little-confidence in regulatory bodies that are tasked with enforcing compliance with important standards that aim to protect the public’s health and safety. The community has asked Benicia City Council to accept the burden of trust that may have been misplaced in this so-called Cooperation Agreement and the refinery, its parent corporation, and some regulatory bodies. Add your voice to this effort if you care about this community’s health and safety. Tell Benicia City Council that they are the only ones we will trust to protect us from special interests and corporate greed.]

The Martinez Refining Co. is the focus of a joint civil action over its release of heavy-metal laden dust. | Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle.

CBS News Bay Area, by Carlos Castaneda, December 15, 2023

Flaring from the Martinez Refining Company on Friday morning prompted an investigation by Contra Costa Health officials who expressed concerns of increased flaring events since the refinery was investigated in November 2022 following a major chemical release.

“The health department is very concerned that these incidents are continuing to happen,” said Contra Costa County Health Director Dr. Ori Tzvieli during a briefing Friday on the latest flaring. “At a properly functioning refinery, there should not be regular flaring. There should not be releases of catalyst and coke dust onto the community as we have seen.

“So we’re very concerned that there’s underlying processes and safety practices at this refinery that are not up to snuff … It’s not acceptable to have these ongoing releases and flaring events,” Tzvieli said.

Nicole Heath, director of Contra Costa Health’s hazardous materials program, explained that MRC notified CCH via the county’s Community Warning System of an incident at the refinery around 9:15 a.m. Initially, the CWS notification identified the flaring as a Level 1 incident — or one that has no expected off-site consequences.

At the same time, CCH received complaints from residents in the greater Martinez area about a strong odor and deployed its hazmat response team to investigate, later calling for the incident to be elevated to a Level 2 — one that is expected to have an impact on the community. Tzvieli said this could mean those with sensitivities to the odor might experience headaches or other irritations.

Heath noted that CCH’s air monitoring systems did not indicate quantities of gas above health advisory levels published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She said the standards are used to determine the exposure levels at which it’s believed there would be an effect on public health. The CCH team has taken readings throughout the community, including at various elementary schools, she added.

Tzvieli said the monitors are detecting low levels of a gas called hydrogen sulfide and noted there may be other sulfur-containing gases in the air. They can be a byproduct of the refining process, but he said they should not be released.

Heath expanded on the refining process, which requires high temperatures and pressure to convert oils into different gases. Flaring is a means to safely release excess pressure. However, she noted, the increase in flaring events indicates that units are having issues more often — potentially a symptom of a deeper issue.

“So when we get the 72-hour report, our team will be able to investigate the incident and see if there are any regulatory non-compliances as a result of this,” Heath said.

When asked if the refinery would be closed down due to noncompliance, the CCH officials said it would be premature to make that determination.

“But we are very committed to investigating this fully and understanding the causes and working with the facility to have safer practices,” Tzvieli said. “Because as I said, this level of flaring releases is not acceptable to our community.”

In a Friday morning Facebook post, MRC, owned by PBF Energy Inc., wrote that the flaring occurred due to an “operational incident.”

The post said, “We are aware of odor complaints and are conducting community monitoring to investigate the source. All appropriate agencies have been notified, and we are working to address these issues. We apologize for any inconvenience to our neighbors. Flares are an essential part of a refinery’s integrated, engineered safety systems designed to safely manage excess combustible gases by burning them off efficiently and effectively.”

MRC officials were not immediately available to comment further on Friday’s flaring.

Reports of the odor have from as far as Crockett, about 11 miles away.

Last month during another flaring incident, the oil refinery said the burnoff was an essential part of safety for the plant’s systems. That flaring incident came a day after a class-action lawsuit accused the refinery of creating a “public nuisance” by releasing chemicals into the surrounding community.

Last year on Thanksgiving night, the refinery released an estimated 20 to 24 tons of “spent catalyst” into the surrounding community until the following morning, when residents found their yards and vehicles covered in metallic dust.

The refinery failed to alert the county health department and the community warning system, both of which are legally mandated within 15 minutes of a release.

California Forever Inc., Fairfield CA, Flannery Associates, Solano County CA, Solano County Orderly Growth Committee, Solano County Water Agency, Solano Together, Travis Air Force Base, Vallejo CA

California Forever reveals plan B if ballot measure fails

People find seats as they get more information on the new California Forever proposed development off Highway 12 near Rio Vista during a town hall meeting on Thursday. | Chris Riley / Times-Herald.

Company spars with Solano Together leader at Benicia meeting

Vallejo Times-Herald, by Daniel Egitto, December 15, 2023

Amid skepticism at a town hall meeting in Benicia, California Forever clarified some key aspects of its plan to build a city-sized community in Solano County.

Fresh information arrived in CEO Jan Sramek’s response to a question about what the company will do if, in November, it fails to pass a ballot initiative to make this project possible. He said in an interview earlier this month that “there are other ways to proceed with the project” if the plan falls through and declined to elaborate.

Sramek clarified Thursday that California Forever owns about 800 acres of land within Rio Vista city limits. If Solano County won’t play ball, he’ll attempt to get that land zoned as residential and build on it.

This would be a less ambitious project and, in Sramek’s view, less beneficial for the area.

“We think that would be a bad idea for Solano County because if we’re doing it piecewise, that wouldn’t help us to bring in employers,” he said.

Answering other concerns about where the company would find enough water for the new development, Sramek said the current plan is to buy water that is currently irrigating almond groves. Sramek said many of these almonds are getting shipped to China, which he sees as a waste of a precious resource.

“We don’t have a shortage of water in California. We have a misuse of water,” he said.

Speakers also raised a variety of other questions about the project. Vallejo resident Michelle Pellegrin argued that while California Forever claims the development would benefit Solano County, its investors’ main goal is “to make a whole hell of a lot of money.”

“This is making money. This is not being nice to people. There’s a huge difference,” Pellegrin said.

Benicia resident Gregg Horton also took aim at a remark by Sramek that he spent a year trying to fix housing crises within existing Bay Area cities, but “became convinced that that wouldn’t be enough to make homes affordable.”

“I find that kind of awful because we have people in this room who have been working for decades on this kind of thing,” Horton said.

Sramek responded that it would be impossible to raise as much capital as California Forever has by attempting to infill existing cities. He also denied the implication that only nonprofit ventures can help people.

“I don’t shy from the fact that this is a for-profit investment. But I think that it’s a false distinction to say that that’s somehow bad,” he said.

Later in the evening, Sramek and Aiden Mayhood, founder of the anti-California Forever coalition Solano Together, went head to head in an argument about a Solano County Water Agency meeting last month.

At that meeting, the agency’s board of directors considered a California Forever proposal to potentially fund a study into improving a key Solano County waterline. The company had claimed that their funding would come with “no strings attached,” but a crowd of over 100 people packed the meeting and overwhelmingly spoke out in opposition.

The agency’s board of directors voted against the proposal, citing community concerns.

Discussing this pipeline, Sramek named Mayhood and originally attempted to blame him for the water agency’s decision – but attendees shouted him down.

Mayhood rejected Sramek’s statement that the agency’s vote took place “because people showed up and yelled at the electeds long enough that they agreed not to do it.”

“It was a question of trust. Can we trust these people?” the organizer said. “And personally, I don’t find them trustworthy.”

California Forever’s final town hall this year will take place at 6 p.m. Monday at 231 North First St. in Dixon.

More about California Forever on the Benicia Independent:

Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Benicia CA, Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO), Keeping Watch on Earth News, Marilyn Bardet, Valero Benicia Refinery

We’re asking City Council to take the “second step” toward adopting an ISO in Benicia. Here’s how you can help

Marilyn Bardet, Benicia resident and community volunteer.
 By Marilyn Bardet, December 12, 2023
At the Dec 19th’s council meeting, the mayor and city council members will be making a watershed decision in the two-step agenda process begun in September, whether to move to direct staff to prepare a model industrial safety ordinance for Benicia [“ISO”] for future consideration. I am urging a unanimous approval of this momentous “second step.”

With the primary duty to protect the community’s health, safety, and sustainability, this council has the choice to gain for the city and public local oversight capacity with enforcement clout to help ensure trustworthy, accountable, operational and management performance at the refinery and at other similarly regulated industrial facilities deemed eligible for inclusion under an ISO.

The community has long deserved enhanced protections that an ISO would provide. Every day, the major polluter in our midst risks public health, safety and environmental quality of the air we breathe and the waters off our shores. Tragically, a 35-year old contract worker died on the job at Valero in November, 2021. Mr. Guitierrez’ death could have been avoided, as could have the 16-year unreported releases from the hydrogen venting unit of benzene and other toxic gases that far exceeded EPA’s public safety thresholds for human health. The Bay Area Air District only learned of the problem in 2019; neither the City or the public was informed of the chronic violations until 2022.

Given the number and seriousness of Valero’s regulatory violations cited by US-EPA and the Bay Area Air District since 2017, it’s a no-brainer that Benicia needs an ISO—one modeled on Contra Costa County’s and Richmond’s, which were established in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Updated several times since, their ISOs go beyond current applicable state regulations and programs, as ours would.

So, while the refinery continues to do business benefiting its parent Texas corporation, a local workforce and city coffers, the council must not ignore its greater responsibility to improve health and safety conditions for our community and downwind neighbors.
We need an ISO that will institute forward-looking best practices—ISO programs and protocols aimed to prevent accidents, reduce and eliminate toxic air emissions, and audit ISO compliance to improve the refinery’s safety culture and clean up the air.

Benicians formally proposed a draft ISO in 2018. Instead, Valero and the City entered into a voluntary contract, the City of Benicia-Valero Cooperation Agreement, which had limited purposes, inherent weaknesses, onerous termination clauses that advantaged Valero, and an expiration date. There was no role for the public. The Agreement could never carry the weight of authority of an ISO that would be part of our municipal code.

With respect to the city’s drastic budget deficit and the costs of an ISO’s on-going administration: those annual costs would be paid for by industries as is the case for Contra Costa County and Richmond. The initial costs incurred over the next months to develop the draft ordinance should and can be absorbed: our city attorney can petition the Air District and US-EPA to direct a sufficient portion of fines assigned to Valero to be directed back to the city to implement the ISO’s creation. Surely it would behoove regulators that the City of Benicia would, through an ISO, be assuming a proactive oversight role to help ensure regulatory compliance and enforcement, including for accurate, trustworthy air quality monitoring.

Finally, to draft the ordinance, city staff will need to consult outside engineering expertise, likely from Contra Costa County. In addition, staff should invite the public’s input and insights: a voluntary ISO Working Group has been meeting for almost a year, researching possible elements of a “B-ISO”. Creating a model ISO, with public input, would be a very positive sign of the City’s commitment to uphold community values and protections for our collective good into the future.

Marilyn Bardet
BCAMP board member
Good Neighbor Steering Committee
Valero CAP member
Community Sustainability Commission, ex officio member
BAAQMD Coalition
B-ISO Working Group
Sustainable Solano board member
There is a group of concerned citizens of Benicia who support the adoption of a Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance (BISHO). To learn more about the effort and add your support, visit www.bisho.org.
If you support Benicia City Council voting in favor of taking the “second step” on the long road toward adopting an ISO in Benicia, consider sending a letter to them as outlined in Stephen Golub’s instructions from his post earlier today (the text that follows comes from that post). You can also support this effort by signing on to this community letter.

 

What You Can Do

By Stephen Golub, from his December 9, 2023 column, first published in the Benicia Herald

If you want to find out more about the need and potential for an ISO, or wish to indicate support for this initiative, please check out the website recently put together to promote it: www.bisho.org

As the site says, employing a suggested name for the proposed ISO:

“We are concerned citizens of Benicia who support the adoption of a Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance (BISHO) that would help prevent accidents, allow us to receive more complete and timelier information, hold local industries accountable, and give our City a ‘seat at the table,’ as all other Bay Area Communities with refineries have done.”

You can also attend the December 19 City Council meeting, which will start at 6 pm in the Council chambers at City Hall. Or you can Zoom into the session, via a link you’ll find at the Agendas and Minutes page of the City’s website shortly before the session takes place, https://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas

Or you can email the Council members, ccing the City Clerk, stating that you support an ISO for Benicia. It’s best if you send your comments by the Dec. 12 deadline for emails to be included in the public record attached to the Dec. 19 meeting. But an email at any time will be read and considered.

Their emails are:

The Dec. 19 meeting is the first but crucial step in helping to make our community safer,  and more secure for our kids, our older adults, our businesses, our employees and all of us. I hope that you’ll consider attending or emailing our representatives about the proposed ISO.

Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Benicia CA, Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO), Keeping Watch on Earth News, Marilyn Bardet, Valero Benicia Refinery

How to write City Council TODAY to ask that they take the “second step” toward an ISO and a safer, healthier Benicia

A Letter to the Editor by Vicki Dennis, December 11, 2023

Other writers before me have outlined the reasons why Benicia needs and deserves an Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance in place. I agree completely. For me, it is very simple and personal: I want to know that the air I am breathing in my own community is clean, safe and healthy, that the vegetables I pull from my garden are safe from toxic particles floating from the air, that I can open my windows and not worry about damaging my lungs.

Other Bay Area refinery cities have moved the needle in working with their local industry. They have in place a stronger Industrial Safety Ordinance that helps assure them that they are getting up-to-date information about emissions and air quality. In Benicia, we deserve the same respect from our refinery leaders.

I urge our City Council to vote yes to move to the second stage of putting in place a stronger and more effective way to provide us with greater transparency, better communication between Valero and the city, and assurances that Benicians know what we are breathing and that our air is indeed healthy. An Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance will go a long way toward accomplishing those goals.

Vicki Dennis
Benicia

There is a group of concerned citizens of Benicia who support the adoption of a Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance (BISHO). To learn more about the effort and add your support, visit www.bisho.org.
If you support Benicia City Council voting in favor of taking the “second step” on the long road toward adopting an ISO in Benicia, consider sending a letter to them as outlined in Stephen Golub’s instructions from his post earlier today (the text that follows comes from that post). You can also support this effort by signing on to this community letter.

 

What You Can Do

By Stephen Golub, from his December 9, 2023 column, first published in the Benicia Herald

If you want to find out more about the need and potential for an ISO, or wish to indicate support for this initiative, please check out the website recently put together to promote it: www.bisho.org

As the site says, employing a suggested name for the proposed ISO:

“We are concerned citizens of Benicia who support the adoption of a Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance (BISHO) that would help prevent accidents, allow us to receive more complete and timelier information, hold local industries accountable, and give our City a ‘seat at the table,’ as all other Bay Area Communities with refineries have done.”

You can also attend the December 19 City Council meeting, which will start at 6 pm in the Council chambers at City Hall. Or you can Zoom into the session, via a link you’ll find at the Agendas and Minutes page of the City’s website shortly before the session takes place, https://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas

Or you can email the Council members, ccing the City Clerk, stating that you support an ISO for Benicia. It’s best if you send your comments by the Dec. 12 deadline for emails to be included in the public record attached to the Dec. 19 meeting. But an email at any time will be read and considered.

Their emails are:

The Dec. 19 meeting is the first but crucial step in helping to make our community safer,  and more secure for our kids, our older adults, our businesses, our employees and all of us. I hope that you’ll consider attending or emailing our representatives about the proposed ISO.