This fire at the Port of Benicia is now FOUR ALARMS and is most likely burning refinery byproducts, according to the city’s fire chief. @KQEDnews. https://t.co/P3a9yyewsi
— Ted Goldberg (@TedrickG) April 9, 2022
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.
[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.]
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
Andria Borba reports on activists accusing port in Benicia of spewing “petroleum coke” into San Francisco Bay (10-25-2021)
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