Category Archives: Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD)

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.

Before Dec. 19, Join the Movement to Hold Valero Accountable and Keep Benicians Safe and Healthy

A Crucial Dec. 19 City Council Meeting on an ISO to Protect Ourselves Against Valero’s Toxic Emissions and Potential Explosions

Smoke from the Valero Benicia refinery during a 2017 incident. | Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

By Stephen Golub, first published in the Benicia Herald on December 9, 2023

A Seat at the Table 

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub

Benicia is the only refinery town in the Bay Area that lacks an industrial safety ordinance (ISO), which could play a crucial role in protecting the safety and health of our kids, our older adults and all of us. On Dec. 19, the City Council will consider a proposal to instruct staff to examine whether the City should adopt such an ordinance.

Unlike the current, voluntary cooperation agreement between Benicia and Valero, an ISO would have real teeth in ensuring that we get timely information about leaks, accidents, violations and ongoing health-and-safety-threatening problems at the Texas-based corporation’s refinery (and potentially at other large corporate facilities here).

An ISO would enable us to learn about these kinds of developments when they occur. It could help prevent such threats in the future, rather than letting them fester for years – with all the increased risks of explosions, fires and poisoned air that come with them. (The cost would be covered by the affected facilities, not your tax dollars. Some estimates put it at several hundred thousand dollars per year. Regardless of the final figure, it would be a drop in the bucket for Texas-based Valero, whose profits were $11.6 billion in 2022.)

More specifically, an ISO would help prevent the kinds of catastrophic fires and explosions that have wreaked havoc on other communities and the many years of toxic, potentially carcinogenic Valero emissions – hundreds of times the legal limits – that have fouled Benicia’s air.

Right now, by and large, we only learn about such dangers at the discretion of Texas-based Valero or various large government agencies whose main focus isn’t Benicia. All too often, we learn little or nothing about these dangerous developments until months or years after they have occurred.

An ISO would give Benicia a seat at the table. 

Potentially Catastrophic, Deadly and Toxic Dangers

In planning this column, I originally thought that I could simply list and summarize articles that document the violations, incidents and dangers that the refinery could pose for the community. But if I tried to do  so, the compilation could well exceed what I have time to write or you have time to read. So here are just a few such items:

“Regulators are seeking an abatement order against the Valero refinery in Benicia to stop what it calls ongoing violations, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said Thursday. The air district wants to require Valero to install pollution control equipment on eight pressure relief devices (PRDs), which are safety measures used to prevent extreme overpressures that the district says could ‘cause catastrophic equipment failure.’” NBC Bay Area, Aug. 11, 2023

“The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) announced Thursday it has cited the Valero refinery in Benicia and three contractors for violations that led to the death of a worker there last November and is proposing a total of $1.75 million in fines…The oil giant, which reported earnings of $114 billion in 2021, was cited four times for either knowingly violating the law or not taking reasonable steps to address a known hazard.NBC Bay Area, May 24, 2022

“Oil refining giant Valero must pay a $1.2 million penalty for major flaring incidents at its Benicia facility that spewed dark plumes of pollutants into neighborhoods, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced…’Failure to properly manage hazardous materials can pose serious risks to our California communities,’ [EPA regional administrator Martha] Guzman said…Benicia Mayor Steve Young said the city wasn’t notified by the EPA about its investigation or the findings.San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2023.

“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…The emissions consisted of a variety of “precursor organic compounds,” or POCs, including [carcinogenic] benzene and other toxic chemicals…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.” KQED, Feb. 24, 2022

What You Can Do

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.


There is a group of concerned citizens of Benicia who also 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’s safety and health, consider sending a letter to Benicia City Council as outlined above or signing on to this community letter.

Nov. 27 Chevron Richmond refinery power loss triggered flaring incident, black smoke clouds

Chevron Richmond flaring. | KPIX.

CBS Bay Area, by Dave Pehling, November 27, 2023

RICHMOND — Flaring activity at the Chevron Richmond refinery Monday afternoon due to a loss of power at part of the facility has sent a large cloud of black smoke over the region.

A Facebook post by the Chevron Richmond account shortly after 4 p.m. confirmed that the workers at the facility were attempting to “quickly to minimize and stop the flaring.” The post said a “Community Warning System (CWS) Level 1” was issued due to smoke and the visible flaring. This type of warning does not require action by the public, the post said.

A representative from Contra Costa Health (CCH) confirmed that Chevron Richmond notified them about the flaring due to “an unplanned unit shutdown” at about 3:30 p.m. CCH said it was sending a hazardous materials team to the refinery to investigate, but no shelter-in-place order has been issued in connection with the incident.

KPIX chief meteorologist Paul Heggen said the smoke plume is blowing to the west. According to the EPA and Purple Air monitors, there has not been a dramatic decline of ground-level air quality.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has not issued an alert regarding the incident and was currently showing the air quality to be moderate in the area around the refinery. District officials confirmed that their inspectors were investigating at the refinery and that they were “documenting any violations of air quality regulations and assisting first responders.”

The district initially said four complaints were received as of around 4:30 p.m. As of an hour later, 51 complaints had been submitted.

Richmond Fire officials are also at the scene and monitoring air quality.

For Our Kids, Our Older Adults and All of Us: A Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance

Smoke from the Valero Benicia refinery during a 2017 incident. | Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub

By Stephen Golub, first published in the Benicia Herald on November 10, 2023

At 4 a.m. on June 21, 2019, a series of massive fires and explosions at a Philadelphia refinery sent both large amounts of toxic chemicals and huge chunks of debris into the air. One 19-ton fragment landed across the Schuylkill River, 2,000 feet away.

The cause of all this? According to the  U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, a corroded ruptured pipe. Apparently, it had been poorly maintained.

The Philadelphia debacle is but one of many refinery and similar disasters that have occurred across the country in recent years. Many of us recall the Chevron fire in Richmond, just over a decade ago.

And just this week, a chemical plant explosion in east Texas triggered large fires, a shelter-in-place order for a five-mile radius around the facility and, even after that order was lifted, official caution “that residents should still avoid spending unnecessary time outdoors, and young children or people with respiratory illnesses and other health issues should stay inside.”

Against this backdrop, and in view of ongoing toxic pollution hazards presented by the presence of Texas-based Valero’s Benicia refinery, a proposal by Vice Mayor Terry Scott and City Council Member Kari Birdseye comes as a breath of fresh air. In a June 10 letter published in the Benicia Herald and through other outlets, the two describe reasons for Benicia adopting a new law that would make our wonderful city safer and healthier for our kids, our older adults and all of us.

Among other things, the ordinance would improve the monitoring of the refinery’s operations and the flow of information from Valero when documented or apparent emissions and violations occur. In these and other regards, it would improve on the rather toothless Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the City currently has with the giant Texas corporation. It would similarly improve on the MOU’s associated community advisory  panel that rarely meets publicly, that most of us have never heard of and, most importantly, that Valero substantially controls.

Now, does Valero’s track record indicate that Benicia needs a strong ordinance rather than the weak MOU?

Consider what a top official of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) said about the fact that for well over a decade the refinery released into Benicia’s air 138 tons of toxic contaminants hundreds of times the legal limits without informing BAAQMD, the City or any of us – something we only learned of last year:

 “We have a situation here where you’ve got a facility who’s [sic] taking samples of emissions from this vent to control and verify refinery processes. They’re doing that from 2003 onwards. And they knew or should have known that those emissions should have been reported. It’s that simple…”

Or consider these realities:

Despite the Memorandum of Understanding, we did not learn of other serious, longstanding Valero violations, which triggered a federal Environmental Protection Agency investigation, until the EPA announced major fines earlier this year.

Despite the MOU, Valero has committed hundreds of other violations over the past several years.

Despite the MOU, Valero did not report or adequately address the 2022 event in which approximately 200 Benicia households were impacted by an oily, airborne residue that fell onto yards, children’s play equipment, solar panels and other neighborhood facilities.

Despite the MOU, earlier this month air monitoring devices in the vicinity of the refinery detected the presence of the dangerous neurotoxin hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the air, quite possibly emanating from the facility, even as Benicians reported smelling something like rotten eggs – the odor of H2S – in several parts of town.

In addition, let’s be realistic about where the ultimate responsibility for the Benicia refinery’s safety, health and other decisions rests: at the company’s Texas headquarters. Its track record compares unfavorably even with other petrochemical corporations, as indicated by a leading Texas environmental activist’s assessment and a lawsuit filed against the corporation by the Texas Attorney General (normally an ally of the oil industry) over a Valero Texas refinery’s continuing “poor operational, maintenance and design practices.” That same refinery’s 2017 fire poured nearly a million pounds of potentially dangerous pollutants into the air, “including carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds,” according to Valero’s own estimates.

Finally, consider the fact that the Valero facility is the only refinery in the North Bay that is not governed by an industrial safety ordinance (ISO).

None of this is to criticize the hard work and efforts of our fine Fire Department, which does its best to monitor actual and potential Valero hazards under the MOU, despite financial and technical constraints. As always, we should all appreciate its service. But we need more than that.

Also, I’m sure we value the jobs, economic impact and other benefits that the company brings to the area, as well as the wonderful current and former Valero employees who are our friends and neighbors. But if Valero itself wants to be a good neighbor, it needs to cooperate with the City as we move on from the MOU, which expires in 2025. In fact, one great feature of the Scott-Birdseye proposal is that it aims for a cooperative, consultative process.

So what’s next? As per the proposal, at its December 19 meeting the Council will vote on whether to instruct city government staff to examine what the next steps are, including a possible ordinance.

To be clear: This will not be a vote on an ordinance itself; it merely authorizes careful examination of options, in cooperation with Valero, the broader business community and of course all of us.

To read the Scott-Birdseye letter or show support for this initiative, please go to https://www.bisho.org/. You could also weigh in by emailing the Council members with your thoughts. You can access their emails by going to this page at the City website.

In addition, you could attend the December 19 Council meeting, whether in person or via Zoom. The link for the latter will be shared by the City Manager (whom you also should feel free to contact about this) down the line.

This process is well worth getting involved with. The safety, health and lives we save could be our own.


There is a group of concerned citizens of Benicia who also 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.