Tag Archives: Petroleum Coke (Petcoke)

[BenIndy: This win shows why Benicia residents are demanding local oversight through the enactment of an Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO). While we’re grateful to Baykeeper for taking a stand for our health and safety, we shouldn’t have to rely on nonprofits for protection. Nor should we accept City leaders’ seeming reluctance to rock the boat in a refinery town by supporting an ISO. The polluted waters this metaphorical boat now floats on demonstrate that inaction and waffling in our leadership is as risky as industrial pollution. It’s time for Benicia’s leaders to pick up their oars and navigate us all to safer, cleaner shores—even if it means making waves.]

Valero and Amports Agree to Clean up Their Acts

*Baykeeper drone footage of a petcoke spill at the Port of Benicia. |* Baykeeper.

Baykeeper’s 300th Legal Win: Hard Evidence Holds Polluters Accountable

Baykeeper, October 7, 2024

After four years of drone investigations, rigorous evidence collection, and court filings: We won! Valero and Amports—the two companies operating an export terminal at the Port of Benicia—have agreed to stop polluting the Bay and nearby neighborhoods. What’s more, this settlement officially marks Baykeeper’s 300th legal victory over 35 years, and it includes the largest Clean Water Act mitigation payment in our history.

It all started with a report to Baykeeper’s pollution hotline. The tipster let us know that the companies were spilling some dark material into the water while loading cargo ships at the port.

When our field team investigated, we documented long black plumes of petroleum coke drifting out into the Bay. We also recorded clouds of petcoke dust rising off the conveyor belts, fouling the air and threatening people in nearby neighborhoods.

Companies Commit to Cleaner Operations

Valero and Amports have agreed to make significant infrastructure upgrades and operational changes to improve activities at the site. These changes will include thorough cleaning and maintenance, installing state-of-the-art equipment to prevent spills and aerial drift, as well as monitoring and recording all petcoke loading operations. Baykeeper’s experts will be evaluating the companies’ compliance with the agreement over the next three years to ensure they are no longer polluting.

$2.38 Million for Local Nonprofits

The companies have also agreed to pay $2.38 million in environmental mitigation payments to help offset the harm of their past pollution. They will send the payment to our partners at the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, which will re-grant it to non-profit organizations around the Bay Area to fund projects that benefit the health of the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed. None of these grants will go to Baykeeper.

With this latest pollution settlement, Baykeeper has directed more than $15 million to the community over our 35-year history. Those funds have supported hundreds of Bay-focused environmental initiatives.

“Baykeeper stood up to these two big companies and made them clean up their acts,” said Baykeeper executive director Sejal Choksi-Chugh. “It’s a big win for the Bay and the people around Benicia. It makes me proud to know that there will be less toxic pollution harming the community, and that lots of local grassroots nonprofits will get a big funding boost to support projects like creek cleanups, wetlands restoration, and environmental education programs because of our win.”

This victory was made possible because of our dedicated supporters. Thank you for enabling us to hold this major fossil fuel polluter accountable, defend local communities, and protect San Francisco Bay.

Make a gift today to keep Baykeeper’s team on the water and in the courtroom.

With your support, we’ll keep taking on the Bay’s biggest polluters – and winning!

Previous reporting by BenIndy:

By Roger Straw, October 6, 2021

Summary and Details of the Pollution Lawsuit

Click image for full 20-page Notice of Intent

In a previous post, I shared the Baykeeper press release announcing the photo and video evidence of illegal polluting of the Carquinez Strait and San Francisco Bay by Benicia AMPORTS.

Here, I want to highlight the discoveries outlined in the 20-page legal notice issued by Baykeepers.

You may jump to the following sections below:

Summary and notice of 60 days to settle

Re: Notice of Ongoing Violations and Intent to File a “Citizen Suit” Under the Clean Water Act

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing on behalf of San Francisco Baykeeper (“Baykeeper”) regarding violations of the Clean Water Act1 (“CWA” or “Act”) at the Amports Port of Benicia Terminal, owned and operated by Amports, Inc. (“Amports”) at 1997 Elm Road, Benicia, CA 94510 (“Facility”) and 1007 Bayshore Road, Benicia, CA 94510. The purpose of this letter (“Notice Letter”) is to put Amports on notice that, at the expiration of sixty (60) days from the date the Notice Letter is served, Baykeeper intends to file a “citizen suit” action against Amports in U.S. Federal District Court. The civil action will allege significant, ongoing, and continuous violations of the Act and California’s General Industrial Storm Water Permit2 (“General Permit”) at the Facility, including but not limited to, the direct deposition of petroleum coke (“petcoke”) into the water from the conveyance system, equipment, and ship, aerial deposition of petcoke directly to the water from the deck of the ship, and the uncontrolled discharge of polluted storm water to the Carquinez Strait, a part of the San Francisco Bay.

Detailed list of violations

As described in detail below, Amports is liable for ongoing violations of the Act as a consequence of the Facility’s: (1) direct discharge of petcoke into the Carquinez Strait, both through deck washing and direct aerial deposition; (2) inaccurate use of SIC code designations to avoid coverage for regulated industrial activities under the General Permit; (3) failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the General Permit resulting in unpermitted storm water discharges, including but not limited to the preparation and implementation of a proper Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan related to Amports’ petcoke loading operation, preparation and implementation of a Monitoring Implementation Plan, and compliance with technology-based Effluent Limitations.

60-day notice and offer of settlement

CWA section 505(b) requires that sixty (60) days prior to the initiation of a civil action under CWA section 505(a), a citizen must give notice of their intent to file suit. 33 U.S.C. § 1365(b). Notice must be given to the alleged violator, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the State in which the violations occur. As required by section 505(b), this Notice of Violation and Intent to File Suit provides notice to Amports of the violations that have occurred and which continue to occur at the Facility. After the expiration of sixty (60) days from the date of this Notice of Violation and Intent to File Suit, Baykeeper intends to file suit in federal court against Amports under CWA section 505(a) for the violations described more fully below.

During the 60-day notice period, Baykeeper would like to discuss effective remedies for the violations noticed in this letter. We suggest that you contact us as soon as possible so that these discussions may be completed by the conclusion of the 60-day notice period. Please note that it is our policy to file a complaint in federal court as soon as the notice period ends, even if discussions are in progress.

Background and photos

A. San Francisco Baykeeper

San Francisco Baykeeper (“Baykeeper”) is a non-profit public benefit corporation….

Members of Baykeeper reside in Benicia, California, as well as in many of the surrounding communities. Baykeeper’s members and supporters use and enjoy San Francisco Bay and other waters for various recreational, educational, and spiritual purposes. Baykeeper’s members’ use and enjoyment of these waters are negatively affected by the pollution caused by the Facility’s operations….

B. The Owner and/or Operator of the Facility

Amports, Inc. is a dba of APS West Coast Inc. and is identified as the owner and operator of the Benicia Port Terminal Company. All three entities have the same address, CEO, Secretary, CFO, and Controller.

C. The Facility’s Industrial Activities and Discharges of Petcoke and Other Pollutants

The Facility is a roughly 400-acre site which includes marine cargo loading equipment, the petcoke loading equipment and conveyor system, parking for cars, docking area and equipment for ships, silos to store petcoke, train car petcoke offloading area and equipment, vehicle maintenance, equipment cleaning, ship cleaning, ship maintenance, and other facilities. According to Amports’ 2015 Notice of Intent to comply with the General Permit under the Clean Water Act, at least 8 acres at the Facility consisted of areas that were exposed to storm water.

The Valero Benicia Refinery processes crude oil by separating it into a range of hydrocarbon components or fractions. Petroleum fractions include heavy oils and residual materials used to make asphalt or petcoke, mid-range materials such as diesel (heating oil), jet fuel, and gasoline, and lighter products, such as butane, propane, and fuel gases.

The petcoke is transported via rail to the Facility and is stored there in silos. Amports transfers the petcoke from the silos to a ship’s hold at the Facility’s dock by way of a covered conveyor system. During this process, the petcoke may escape in half a dozen or more ways.

First, petcoke spills off of the conveyor belt system and is deposited onto the wharf and directly into Carquinez Strait. This occurs while the crane boom is in the lowered position, and, as depicted below, continues as the boom is raised while the conveyor continues to operate.

Second, petcoke is deposited onto the deck of the ship and into the water, potentially due to overspray from the loading mechanism or other operations, leaving visible plumes of petcoke that can be seen in the water.

Third, at the conclusion of the loading, longshoremen hose off the deck of the ship, and the related loading equipment on and around the ship, cleaning the equipment and forcing contaminated runoff directly into the Carquinez Strait, again leaving visible plumes of petcoke that can be seen in the water.

Fourth, as the ship is being loaded, large visible clouds of black particulate matter, presumably petcoke dust, drift through the air away from the ship before being directly deposited into the water and/or onto the nearby shoreline.

Additionally, petcoke may escape and be deposited onto the Facility or into the water during: (a) the offload from trains, (b) the movement of petcoke around the Facility, (c) storage at the Facility, (d) from equipment and vehicle cleaning, (e) from equipment and vehicle maintenance or repair, and (f) each time a sufficient rain event occurs due to the Facility’s discharge of pollutants from industrial activity in storm water, through direct discharges of industrial pollutants.

The deposition of petcoke and other pollutants into San Francisco Bay is harmful and deleterious to the Bay’s wildlife and communities. Petcoke is a petroleum byproduct and is known to contain pollutants including heavy metals such as copper, zinc, nickel, arsenic, mercury, and vanadium, all of which are harmful to aquatic life, including fish and birds.

Additionally, people exposed to petcoke pollutants can experience severe health problems like asthma, lung cancer, and heart disease.

Detailed harmful effects of Petcoke

Amports is permitted by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) to process and load 2 million tons of petcoke onto export ships over a 12-month period. Amports does not have any permits from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (“Regional Board”). Amports is not permitted to discharge petcoke directly into the Carquinez Strait. And Amports is also not permitted to discharge any storm water, directly or indirectly, that is the result of industrial activity, including water that is commingled with industrial discharges.

Baykeeper’s suit will allege that petcoke is deposited on the site with every instance of: petcoke being transported by rail to the site, petcoke offloading from a train at the Facility, and petcoke being handled and transported on the Facility’s premises. Additionally, Baykeeper will allege that petcoke enters the Carquinez Strait with every instance of: petcoke being loaded and/or oversprayed onto a ship docked at the Facility, petcoke-related equipment, including the conveyor systems, cranes, and ships, being maintained and/or cleaned, and each storm event at the Facility in excess of 0.1” of precipitation.

The discharge of pollutants from industrial facilities contributes to the impairment of surface waters and aquatic-dependent wildlife. These contaminated discharges can and must be controlled for ecosystems to regain their health and to protect public health. As part of its investigation of the Facility, Baykeeper observed and documented by video numerous instances of illegal discharges during Amports’ various activities and handling of marine cargo (specifically petcoke) at the Facility between November 2020 and March 2021.

Additionally, with every significant rainfall event, millions of gallons of polluted storm water originating from industrial operations such as the Facility pour into storm drains and local waterways. The consensus among agencies and water quality specialists is that storm water pollution accounts for more than half of the total pollution entering surface waters each year. Such discharges of pollutants from industrial facilities contribute to the impairment of downstream waters and aquatic dependent wildlife. These contaminated discharges can and must be controlled for the ecosystem to regain its health.

THE REMAINDER OF THE DOCUMENT is organized into the following sections, which you can study at length here.

II. THE CLEAN WATER ACT (p. 7)
A. The NPDES Permit Program (p. 7)
B. California’s General Industrial Storm Water Permit (p. 8)
C. The Facility’s Permit Enrollment Status (p. 12)
III. NAME AND ADDRESS OF NOTICING PARTY (p. 13)
IV. COUNSEL (p. 13)
V. VIOLATIONS OF THE ACT AND GENERAL PERMIT (p. 13)
A. Amports’ Direct, Non-Storm Water Discharges Without an
NPDES Permit (p. 14)
B. Amports’ Illegal Indirect Discharges Without An NPDES
Permit (p. 15)
C. Amports’ Illegal Storm Water Discharges (p. 15)
D. Violations of the Act and General Permit Reporting and
Monitoring Rules (p. 16)
E. Violations of the General Permit’s SWPPP Requirements (p.
17)
VI. RELIEF SOUGHT FOR VIOLATIONS OF THE CLEAN WATER
ACT (p. 17)
VII. CONCLUSION (p. 18)
ATTACHMENT 1: DATES OF ALLEGED EXCEEDANCES BY
AMPORTS FROM OCTOBER 4, 2016 TO OCTOBER 4, 2021
(p. 19)
ATTACHMENT 2: SERVICE LIST (p. 20)

AMPORTS, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Petroleum Coke (Petcoke), Port of Benicia, San Francisco Baykeeper, Toxic pollutants, Valero Benicia Refinery

Baykeeper features Benicia activists Andrés Soto and Kathy Kerridge: The struggle for clean air and water in Benicia

May 18, 2022 Roger Straw

Environmental watchdog group Baykeeper filed a lawsuit in federal court against Amports, which owns the Port of Benicia, and Valero for allegedly mishandling petroleum coke, a refinery product that can damage the heart and lungs.

Peninsula|Press, a project of Stanford Journalism, by Elissa Miolene, May 16, 2022

From a cliff overlooking the Port of Benicia, Cole Burchiel pumped his fists in the air. It was a silent, solitary celebration – born not of happiness, but of vindication.

As a field investigator at the San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental watchdog group, Burchiel had been conducting one of his regular patrols of the bay. As he maneuvered his drone around the port, black plumes towered from the ship beneath it. And as he hit record, the drone – affectionately named Osprey – captured what for months had been impossible to prove.

Petroleum coke, a refinery byproduct that can damage the heart and lungs, was being mishandled at the Port of Benicia.

“It’s heartbreaking to see this happening to the environment,” Burchiel said. “But it was exciting because finally – after all this time – we have enough to do something about it.”

Five months later, in March of 2020, Baykeeper officially filed a lawsuit in federal court against Amports, which owns the Port of Benicia, and Valero, which produces the petroleum coke itself. According to Baykeeper, the incident Burchiel caught on camera was just one of many documented by the organization between November 2020 and March 2021.

Valero declined to comment on the suit, while Amports did not return requests to do so.

“We have a solid case lined up and some of the best lawyers I’ve ever met, so I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to deliver justice to this community,” said Burchiel. “The wheels are now in motion and the train can no longer be stopped.”

Baykeeper hopes the lawsuit will lead to increased regulation not just in Benicia, but across the East Bay, where many think decades of contamination – and the presence of five oil refineries – have led to increased asthma, respiratory disease, and other illnesses.

Elusive East Bay pollutants

The first call to Baykeeper’s hotline came from a longshoreman at the Port of Benicia in 2016. Black dust was billowing everywhere, the caller said, along with a thick, black substance that was seeping into the Carquinez Strait.

On land, many Benicia residents were noticing something similar. Pat Toth Smith, for example, said that those living near the Valero Benicia Refinery would wake up with a layer of powder on their cars. Constance Beutel, another Benicia resident, described seeing black dust, suspended and shimmering, in sun-lit air.

Baykeeper speculated that the black dust was petroleum coke, a bottom-of-the-barrel byproduct packed with heavy metals. Petroleum coke resembles coal, but is much dirtier – and when burned, it emits 5 to 10 percent more carbon dioxide.

At first, the Baykeeper team tried to locate the source of the petroleum coke on its small, blue-and-white speedboat. They knew that most of the petroleum coke produced in the area came from the Valero Benicia Refinery, which shipped the material to Asia via the Port of Benicia. In their boat, Baykeeper skippers and field investigators circled the strait, but were ultimately unable to detect evidence of contamination from the water.

Years later, Baykeeper was able to see the port – and spot the evasive pollution – from a new angle: the sky.

“The most significant pollution was an aerial plume of black smoke nearly 500 feet tall,” Burchiel said.

Cole Burchiel peers into a telephoto lens to survey ships at the Port of Benicia. Photo by Elissa Miolene for the Peninsula Press

Over the last decade alone, 277 toxic spills in Benicia were reported to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), with 75 spills reported by the Valero Benicia Refinery itself. As part of their investigation into Amports and Valero, Baykeeper also found significantly high levels of zinc, nickel, mercury, copper, and arsenic in dredging material taken from the bay in 2010, 2013, and 2016, materials that point to consistent petroleum coke contamination, the organization said.

These findings occurred amid a regular barrage of pollution, smoke, and contaminants already drifting across the East Bay, which – even if reported – were usually invisible to those breathing them in.

Can’t see it, can’t prove it

While Baykeeper was looking into Valero, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District) was doing the same – albeit, from a different lens.

After an investigation into the refinery in late 2018, the Air District found that Valero was producing toxic emissions, including cancer-causing agents like benzene, that were hundreds of times higher than permitted. The Air District mandates that refineries produce less than 15 pounds of “precursor organic compounds,” or hazardous air pollutants, per day. But over the three years of their investigation, the Air District found that Valero was producing 5,200.

According to the Air District, Valero had been aware of these elevated levels since 2003.

“This wasn’t just a little bit over the legal limit,” said Kathy Kerridge, director of the Good Neighbor Steering Committee, an organization focused on environmental issues in Benicia. “This was like somebody driving 400 miles per hour in a five mile per hour speed zone.”

Though the Air District made these findings – and issued a notice of violation to Valero – in 2019, the agency did not notify the public until earlier this year, when it announced the imposition of an abatement order against the refinery.

Benicia Mayor Steve Young said he met with the general manager of the Valero Refinery nearly every month since he took office. Nothing about the investigation or the violation was ever revealed to him, either by Valero or the Air District, Young said.

“The fact that none of this was mentioned to me during any of these meetings is dispiriting,” said Mayor Young. “This was first discovered in 2003, but the Air District didn’t find out about it until 2018. Once they started to address it, they still didn’t let the city know. We are frustrated that something like this could go on – undetected and unreported – for this long.”

At a community meeting in February, Benicia residents repeatedly asked representatives how such pollution could have been concealed at Valero, and why the public was not notified until three years after the Air District began their investigation. According to the Air District, this information was kept from the public to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation. Before releasing its findings, the Air District was working with Valero to develop a solution to the exceedance – one that ultimately reduced emissions, but not enough to comply with existing regulations.

“We could have done better, and we should have done better sooner,” said Damian Breen, the Senior Deputy Executive Officer at the Air District, at the community meeting.

In mid-March, the Air District approved an abatement order for Valero that requires the refinery to halt unreported emissions.

Even before these emissions were publicized, Valero was already the fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the Bay Area, producing an estimated total of 2,186,096 metric tons of CO2 per year.

Valero was surpassed only by other oil producers, including the Shell Martinez, Chevron Richmond, and Tesoro refineries – the latter of which is now idled.

Life in a refinery corridor

According to Andres Soto, Benicia resident and environmental activist, the battle for transparency and accountability is nothing new to his community – one that is at the tail end of the Bay Area’s refinery corridor.

After living in Richmond and Benicia, Soto has seen similar things in both refinery towns, including a lack of trust with the Air District, a lack of trust with the refineries, and the impact those factors have on community members. Soto’s grandson, for example, plays on the local baseball team sponsored by Valero. He also has severe asthma, a condition which can be linked to the inhalation of refinery-produced materials.

Kerridge has also seen such illness firsthand. Two of her neighbors have died of lung cancer, and in the past two years, two of her friends’ husbands. She has had breast cancer. None of them were smokers.

“It’s very difficult to say this is caused by excess pollution, you can’t really pin it on that,” Kerridge said. “But I don’t know how typical it is to have that many people die of lung cancer in your neighborhood.”

Though it can be difficult to link pollution with health effects, Benicia’s toxic release score – used to enumerate exposure to chemical emissions from large facilities – is higher than 83 percent of the state, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. A 2016 report also showed that Solano County has rates of asthma and some cancers that are higher than the state average.

With three other refineries operating across the East Bay, communities like Richmond, Martinez, and Vallejo share Benicia’s health risks – and in some cases, face additional challenges. Richmond, for example, is home to Chevron, the largest refinery in the East Bay. In the neighborhood surrounding Richmond’s Levin Terminal, which handles coal and petroleum coke, asthma rates are higher than 99% of all neighborhoods in California, according to CalEnviroScreen.

Eduardo Martinez, a Richmond city councilmember and retired elementary school teacher, is intimately aware of such health effects. When he first moved to Richmond, he couldn’t understand why so many of his students were refusing to participate in their physical education classes.

“When I kept trying to push them, I got complaints from parents saying, I don’t know whether my son’s told you, but he has asthma,” said Martinez. “I started doing an inventory of my students, and I found out that over half my students had asthma.”

Realizing the extent of the issue, Martinez created an alternate physical education curriculum for those suffering from asthma, thereby creating an “asthma club” for children who couldn’t previously participate in gym classes.

It’s something that is not lost on the refineries, including Chevron in Richmond. In response to a request for comment, Chevron pointed to its efforts to reduce emissions, increase refinery safety, and monitor air quality. It also highlighted its own community air monitoring program, which has been in operation since 2014. The full comment can be accessed here.

“Chevron has a long-standing commitment to reduce emissions at our Richmond facility,” said the refinery in an email. “Our recent major investment in a Modernization Project is a great example of efforts taken to improve energy efficiency, reduce air emissions overall, cap greenhouse gas emissions, and increase the safety and reliability of the refinery. This project enabled the refinery to achieve more than 25 percent reduction of particulate matter emissions refinery-wide.”

Still, many activists say such efforts are not enough.

“This is a huge issue: that you can have oil extraction and facilities around sensitive receptors – kids, older people, even you and me,” said Janet Scoll Johnson, Coordinator of the Sunflower Alliance, a Bay Area environmental group. “This is the fight in the East Bay. It’s an environmental justice issue of the highest order.”

Cole Burchiel surveys Richmond’s Levin Terminal from his drone. Photo by Elissa Miolene for the Peninsula Press

Pushing forward, on land and at sea

Despite these challenges, organizations across the East Bay are continuing to push forward on land and at sea. From 1989 to today, Baykeeper has won over 300 lawsuits against polluters – and both the organization and Benicia residents are hopeful that their latest suit against Valero will lead to decreased pollution.

“We hope to work with the defendants to resolve this case quickly and in a way that protects the health of the bay and the local community,” said Sejal Choksi-Chugh, the executive director of Baykeeper, in an email.

The San Francisco skyline from the Baykeeper’s boat, shot during a regular patrol in February 2022. Photo by Elissa Miolene for the Peninsula Press.

In the meantime, community members are remaining hopeful. Kerridge and a team of activists recently unveiled the Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program, a system that scans for benzene, black carbon, and other pollutants right outside Valero’s gates. Martinez is running for mayor, with a foundational pillar of his campaign centered around a transition from fossil fuels. And Soto, though recently retired, is continuing to work with those in the ecosystem to hold institutions – both private and public – accountable.

“My hope comes from the fact that we have been able to organize, pull people together, and create networks all around the Bay Area addressing this,” said Soto. “The industry is going kicking and screaming, resisting these changes – but that’s nothing new. We expect that.”

AMPORTS, Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick, Fire, Petroleum Coke (Petcoke), Port of Benicia, Valero Benicia Refinery

Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick gives details on the 4-alarm fire at the Benicia Port

April 9, 2022 Roger Straw

News Conference, partial transcript of Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick’s remarks on the 4-Alarm Port Fire

By Roger Straw, April 9, 2022

Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick on April 9, 2022 concerning large pier fire at the Port of Benicia. Video of the presser can’t be embedded here, but it is available from Announcements on the City Website at https://benftp.exavault.com/p/IT/Sandy/Benicia%20Port%20Fire.

What follows is my rough transcription of most of Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick’s statement to the press on April 9, 2022 concerning the 4-alarm fire at the Port of Benicia. (Taken from audio that is difficult at best.) – R.S.

>> Chief Chadwick reported that the fire started in a small outbuilding at the base of the petcoke silos. The conveyor belt that goes from there up toward where the ships are loaded was catching fire. At first the Fire Department thought they had a petcoke fire.

The fire at the base of the silo was quickly extinguished, but the crews had a difficult time accessing the conveyor belt system. It’s large rubber tracks were on fire all the way to the top.

The fire dropped from the top of the conveyor belt and ultimately caught the pier on fire. The pier is large with a blacktop road surface, and underneath it are large timbers that have been soaked in creosote. When those start burning, they are very difficult to access and extinguish, and they were the main part of the fire during this incident. We requested 4 fire boats, as they are the only real access to these creosote logs beneath the pier.

Our biggest concern was the unlikely possibility of a shift in wind direction. Light winds have continued to move from the west, blowing the smoke out onto the Strait.

The other concern would be hazardous materials. Obviously there’s a lot of chemicals in that wood, and everything else on that pier that would’ve made its way into the water, and we are working closely with Fish and Wildlife and US Coast Guard on that issue….

We have also been in contact with AMPORTS and Valero Refinery…

(in response to press questions…)

We had a very similar pier fire early on in my career, and it burned for a couple of days…

That pier is used for offloading oil from ships, loading petcoke onto ships, and offloading cars…

It will likely be 24 to 48 hours before the fire is completely extinguished.

Hazardous materials have burned. Petcoke is considered a hazardous material. I do not know if any of it burned, but my understanding is that the large volume of it in the silos is not currently on fire, so if it did, it was a small amount at the base. On the pier itself, there are numerous hazardous materials: there are tanks of gasoline, tanks of diesel that we can’t get to because there’s fire underneath it. That has the potential to burn, but for the most part, what’s been burning is the timber that has been soaked in creosote, and that also is hazardous. When it burns it emits hazardous smoke. …yes there are a few small tanks on top…

I’m not a hazardous materials expert, but if you know what railroad ties are,…it’s like a black oil that they have used for many years to keep lumber from rotting if it’s in the ground or water.

QUESTION about the impact of these chemicals on the environment and the ocean if some of that petcoke did burn, and these other products…

My primary concern is with the impact to our citizens in their air, and right now 100% due to favorable wind conditions, we haven’t had that issue. And the same with my fire crews on the scene – they have not been impacted by that. As far as what it does to the environment, that would be more a question for the Bay Area Air Quality District.

AMPORTS, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Petroleum Coke (Petcoke), Port of Benicia, San Francisco Baykeeper, Toxic pollutants, Valero Benicia Refinery

Valero Hit With Suit Over Bay Area Petroleum Coke Pollution

March 3, 2022 Roger Straw

[BenIndy Editor: Last October, Baykeeper announced a Notice of Intent to sue, offering 60 days for a settlement. Evidently there was no agreement to settle. Today’s news below. See also: earlier reports on the Benicia Independent.]

SF Baykeeper Sues Water-Discharging Businesses

Law Street Media, by Jose Rascon, March 2, 2022

On Thursday, plaintiff San Francisco Baykeeper filed suit against Amports, Inc APS West Coast, Benicia Port Terminal Company, and Valero Refining Company in the Northern District of California. San Francisco Baykeeper is claiming that the defendants have unlawfully discharged pollutants into public waters.

The defendants, according to the complaint, are a group of corporations that conduct business in the automotive processing industry, while the plaintiff is a nonprofit organization “whose main focus is to hold polluters and government agencies accountable to create healthier communities and help wildlife thrive”

The complaint states that the defendants have “directly discharge petroleum coke into the Carquinez Strait at the Port of Benicia and that Defendants do so without a valid permit under the Clean Water Act and in violation of California law.”

The plaintiff is claiming that the defendants have gone out and discharged harmful toxins in the Port of Benicia through several means. Some of these means have been through “the washing of petcoke and pollutants off the deck of the ship and other loading-related equipment, directly into the Bay,” as well as the direct “aerial deposition of particulate matter into the water from Amports’ conveyance system and operations.”

According to the plaintiff the substance that the defendants have allegedly been discharging, known as Petroleum coke, or petcoke is a harmful byproduct of petroleum refining. Some of the properties that Petcoke contains are heavy metals such as copper, zinc, nickel arsenic, and mercury. This substance is being claimed to be “a harmful and deleterious to aquatic ecosystems, animal and plant species in and around waters, and poses risks to human health”.

Other allegations that the plaintiff is asserting is that the substance Petcoke makes its way into the public waters of the Carquinez Strait where the defendants do not have the proper authorization to work in.

Ultimately, the defendant is facing 10 counts, including NPDES permit violations, Clean Water Act violations, and violation of unfair competition law.

The Plaintiff is being represented by Schute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP

The Benicia Independent ~ Eyes on the Environment / Benicia news & views

Tag Archives: Petroleum Coke (Petcoke)

Baykeeper wins $2.38 million pollution settlement against Valero and Amports

Valero and Amports Agree to Clean up Their Acts