Air quality advisory for smoke from fire at Valero
Potential localized smoke impacts in Southern Solano and parts of Contra Costa counties
SAN FRANCISCO – The Bay Area Air District is issuing an air quality advisory for smoke in Southern Solano, northern Contra Costa, “and northwestern Alameda counties”, specifically communities between I-80 and I-680 bridges (Martinez, Pacheco, Concord and Port Chicago), but with some impact possible southward to Oakland, due to a fire at Valero.
Localized impacts near the fire and in downwind neighborhoods are possible, including smoky skies, the smell of smoke and elevated levels of particulate pollution and other harmful pollutants. This is based on current meteorological conditions which can change depending on the duration of the fire. The Air District will be closely monitoring air quality throughout the region for smoke impacts from this incident.
Residents should follow instructions from local health officials.
The Air District is working with first responders to advise them on meteorology and air quality issues relating to the incident. Inspectors are on site investigating the incident, responding to public complaints and documenting any violations of air quality regulations. Once the investigation is complete, an incident report will be posted on this webpage: https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/incidents-and-advisories.
Smoke from the fire contains fine particulate matter and other harmful pollutants. Exposure to smoke is unhealthy, even for short periods of time. It is important that Bay Area residents protect their health by avoiding exposure. If possible, and temperatures allow, stay inside with windows and doors closed until smoke levels subside. Set car vent systems to re-circulate to prevent outside air from moving inside. The use of indoor air filtration can also help reduce smoke exposure.
Smoke can irritate the eyes and airways, causing coughing, a dry scratchy throat and irritated sinuses. Elevated particulate matter in the air can trigger wheezing in those who suffer from asthma, emphysema or COPD. Elderly persons, children and individuals with respiratory illnesses are particularly susceptible to elevated air pollution levels and should take extra precautions to avoid exposure.
Check the U.S. EPA’s Fire and Smoke Map to see if smoke is affecting your area at: https://fire.airnow.gov/.
The Bay Area Air District is the regional agency responsible for protecting air quality in the nine-county Bay Area. Connect with the Air District via Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.
Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land
By Stephen Golub, originally published in the Benicia Herald on May 5, 2024
In recent weeks, I’ve reached out to a number of persons familiar with the Contra Costa County (CCC) and Richmond Industrial Safety Ordinances (ISOs), which seek to bolster those localities’ protection from fires, explosions and toxic emissions at the four refineries in that county.
Since it is situated in Solano County and not Contra Costa, Valero is the only Bay Area refinery not covered by such an ordinance. Benicia is the only refinery town in the area not protected by one. To their great credit, Vice Mayor Scott, Councilwoman Birdseye, Fire Chief Chadwick and other personnel are spearheading the City’s drive, unanimously endorsed by the City Council, to draft an ISO for Benicia. The Benicia Industrial Safety and Health Ordinance citizens’ group, to which I belong, is seeking to make the resulting law as strong as possible.
My look at other Bay Area ISOs is intended to bolster both of those efforts.
For now, I’ll focus on three key overlapping considerations that, in my opinion, have so far emerged from my ISO conversations:
My first point regards the crucial citizen Oversight Committee (or whatever name is eventually used) that, as part of the ISO, will keep its administration and enforcement on track. The Committee should comprise independent operational, scientific, environmental, safety and health experts, as well as representatives from affected communities within Benicia and beyond.
I suggest this approach in contrast with simply involving all potential “stakeholders” with some sort of interest in the ISO, since persons employed by, affiliated with or aligned with Valero are unlikely to back strong oversight. Who sits at the table will determine what gets done.
More specifically, let’s involve people who have expertise regarding Valero and other refineries’ operations but who are not beholden to them, as demonstrated by their professional or community track records.
Let’s certainly engage Benicians who have been affected by the emissions, odors, vapors and even residues from the refinery’s repeated incidents and accidents.
Let’s also include non-Benicians, such as those representing citizen or government groups in CCC, Richmond, Martinez and other neighboring communities, as well as representatives of Bay Area environmental organizations.
This brings me to my second point, implied by the first:
The Oversight Committee should not include Valero. Nor should it involve the affiliated “Community Advisory Panel” (CAP), which very rarely involves the community in its meetings and which largely supports the refinery’s perspective. While individuals affiliated with these two entities may mean well, it is inappropriate for a company to influence the very body that oversees the safety and health aspects of its operations.
Let’s also bear in mind that when we’re talking about Valero decision-making, we’re talking not about our fine neighbors and friends who may be employees, but instead about a huge Texas-based corporation.
There is nothing wrong and much that is right with consultation with Valero and listening to its valid concerns. But there are plenty of opportunities to do so, outside of it having membership in the Oversight Committee.
Or to put the matter more simply: Benicia can’t have the fox guarding the henhouse.
To my simple mind, it’s self-evident that Valero should not oversee itself. After all, you wouldn’t want a neighbor who regularly violates local and national safety/health-oriented regulations controlling efforts to prevent those violations, would you? And that’s even assuming the neighbor is committed to proper community oversight, something that can’t be said of Valero in view of its apparently intense opposition to an ISO.
CAP has also demonstrated keen opposition to the very idea of an ISO, as indicated by its hostile reception when Scott and Birdseye attempted to engage it in a constructive way at one of its meetings. This has large ramifications for the Oversight Committee.
Again, why put the fox in charge of the henhouse?
Against this backdrop, it’s puzzling that the City’s “Engage Benicia” ISO outreach site and the community survey it includes feature CAP in several questions, even in terms of a potential ISO role. Perhaps this is due to the laudable even-handedness with which the City is approaching this effort, despite opposition from Valero and CAP. But in visiting the site (engagebenicia.com) and participating in its survey, which I heartily encourage, Benicians should be aware that there’s less to CAP than its title implies.
My third point is that the Oversight Committee has a tremendous potential to connect Benicia with likeminded citizens and governments across the Bay Area regarding health and safety concerns. By virtue not just of its membership but also its outreach, it can share information, advocacy and efforts concerning common problems and solutions experienced by CCC, Richmond, Martinez and other areas. That’s yet another reason for the Committee to comprise independent individuals, rather than Valero or its affiliated parties.
In suggesting these paths, I speak only on my own behalf and not as a member of BISHO. If you’re interested in learning more about Valero’s violations and the many reasons the City and your fellow Benicians are working toward a strong ISO, please check out this site: bisho.org.
Join the BISHO movement
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.
Subscribe to the Benicia Herald and keep local news alive!
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Contra Costa Hazardous Materials Program, issued April 1, 2024
The public has an opportunity to comment on the Incident Investigation/ Root Cause Analysis report (from a third-party consultant)associated with a spent catalyst release from the Martinez Refining Company (MRC) which occurred between November 24-25, 2022. The 45-day comment period is opening on April 4, 2024, and then closes on May 20, 2024. A public meeting will be held at the Contra Costa County Administration Building, Room 110A/B/C located at 1025 Escobar Street in Martinez on April 11, 2024, from 6:00PM to 8:00 PM.
To join via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/98874840760
or Dial: (669) 900-6833 Webinar ID: 988 7484 0760
MRC had a particulate matter release from their Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (CCU) on November 24-25, 2022. This release was estimated to have emitted 20-24 tons of fine particulate matter, called spent catalyst, into the surrounding community. TheCounty, working with an Oversight Committee, hired Scott Berger and Associates to perform the incident investigation. TheOversight Committee included members of the community, the City of Martinez, the City of Benicia, United Steel Workers, a refinery representative, and CCHHMP.
If you are interested and are available, attend the Public Meeting or submit comments on the report to Hazmat.Arpteam@cchealth.org or mail comments to the following address:
Contra Costa Health Hazardous Materials Programs
Attn: Michael Dossey
4585 Pacheco Blvd., Ste. 100
Martinez, CA 94553
More about Contra Costa’s search for accountability and transparency from refineries on BenIndy:
The saga of the repurposing of two of the refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area to manufacturing liquid biofuels from high deforestation risk commodities like soy took another anti-democratic twist this week. Local authorities sped through a hearing on January 16, 2024 on the revised environmental review of the massive Phillips 66 biofuel refinery project in the unincorporated community of Rodeo on the northern shores of the Bay, rushing to keep the $1 billion investment moving forward while taking measures to curtail public participation in the process.
On that day in early May 2022 the Contra Costa County Supervisors unanimously denied the appeals and wholeheartedly green lighted both of the biofuel refinery projects. Following those decisions by local elected officials, the Center for Biological Diversity, in partnership with Communities for a Better Environment, and with the legal and technical expertise of the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic, filed parallel lawsuits challenging the simultaneous approval of the environmental review of both unprecedented refinery conversion projects. The court case on the Marathon/Neste joint venture at the Martinez refinery resulted in a partial decision exposing flaws with the environmental review, focusing singularly on the flawed odor management plan, an unsatisfactory result for climate justice advocates. That lawsuit has already been sent on to the state appeals court, and will be heard in the coming year.
The Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo has been getting lucrative incentives for making biofuels even though the environmental review of the project was found deficient by a judge. | Uncredited image from Biofuelwatch post.
However, in the case of the Phillips 66 biofuel refinery project, the same judge ruled that the original environmental review of the biofuels project was illegal and had failed to address serious questions of cumulative impacts, while embarking on the illegal tactic of piecemealing — the illegal breaking up of the entirety of a project into discrete pieces, thus averting the legally required review of the project as a whole.
Despite being presented with more evidence about the dangers of characterizing the conversion of the more than century old Phillips 66 Rodeo refinery to making biofuels as a climate solution, the county proceeded with great haste to finalize the revised environmental review during the holiday. Precisely four weeks after the close in early December 2023 of written public comment on the draft the county announced the January 16 public hearing to approve the final revised version.
The newest final version of the project review once again roundly dismissed all the evidence and information provided by community members and the organizations that engaged on the public comment. Despite the requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act to assess how new information can influence the veracity of the entirety of the environmental review, the county discarded new factual information provided in the public comment that in essence further substantiated the record of evidence that had resulted in the court of law ruling that the original environmental review was illegal in the first place.
Neither the Board of Supervisors nor County Staff expressed any sort of contrition nor leadership self reflection when faced with the fact that they had previously rubber stamped an environmental review that the court had later found deficient.
Kerry Guerin is an attorney with Communities for a Better Environment who attended the January 2024 hearing on the Phillips 66 project.. | Uncredited image from Biofuelwatch post.
Of the evidence presented to the county by community members regarding the safety concerns with the processing of feedstocks like soy was the existence of the most recent draft of what is known as a Flare Minimization Plan (FMP), presented by Phillips 66 on an annual basis for the Rodeo refinery to the local Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). The FMP is an annual requirement, the review of which is buried in the opaque processes of BAAQMD staff and not easily accessible to the public. The late 2023 version of the FMP for the Phillips 66 Rodeo refinery apparently still remains confidential. However, the 2022 ‘nonconfidential’ version of the FMP was shared with Biofuelwatch.
Remarkably, despite the fact that Phillips 66 has been making liquid biofuels at their Rodeo refinery since April 2021, more than a year before receiving final approval for their project from the County in May 2022, an anomaly that the court saw as being relevant to the illegal piecemealing of the environmental review of the project, their most recent ‘nonconfidential’ version of their Flare Minimization Plan from October 2022 does not even mention biofuels. As a matter of fact, scrutiny of the 2022 FMP document reveals absolutely no mention of the refinery conversion project at all.
In essence, Phillips 66 has received lucrative Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits from the California Air Resources Board for producing ‘renewable diesel’ from feedstocks like soy and canola with a hydrogen intensive ‘hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids’ hydro cracker technology at their Rodeo refinery, but the most recent publicly available version of the FMP for that same refinery regulated by the local air district BAAQMD does not even mention the words biofuels, renewable diesel, hydrotreated vegetable oils, HEFA, soy, canola, animal tallow or any of the terms that are directly associated with making these products. As far as the BAAQMD supervised Phillips 66 Rodeo Refinery Flare Minimization Plan goes the biofuel project apparently does not even exist.
Notably absent from the recent county supervisors hearing on the revised environmental review were any representatives from BAAQMD, neither to provide comment or to be available to answer questions from decision makers, once again raising questions about to what extent the local air district is fulfilling their responsibility to implement regulatory activities within the context of current and future operations.
This incongruence of biofuel production not even existing in a recent Phillips 66 FMP was brushed aside by county authorities, who also appeared completely unconcerned about the recent devastating fire at the Marathon-Neste biofuel refinery in Martinez. At the same time, the County was obligated in their documentation to recognize that there exist numerous ‘significant and unavoidable environmental impacts‘ from the project. Those impacts were dismissed because of the economic significance of the refinery project.
Tyson Bagley is the United Steelworkers Health and Safety Representative for the Phillips 66 Rodeo refinery who attended the January 2024 hearing and spoke in strong support of the Phillips 66 biofuels project. | Uncredited image from Biofuelwatch post.
Notably, and not surprisingly, labor organizations representing workers at the Phillips 66 refinery came out in strong force in support of approval of the project, celebrating the opportunity to keep the refinery operating into the foreseeable future to make ‘renewable’ fuels with ‘renewable’ feedstocks to provide the state with the ‘low carbon’ energy sources that are central to aspirations to achieve ‘decarbonization.’
Adding a particularly grotesque dynamic of inequity to the proceedings was the manner in which the local authorities conducted the review hearing.
After having spent two hours celebrating the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr in commemoration of the treasured annual federal holiday, the Board of Supervisors reconvened to hear the agenda item on the Phillips 66 biofuel refinery environmental review. Remarkably, after an abbreviated 15 minute staff presentation that reasserted the urgency of approving the project again, the chair of the Board stated that public comment would be restricted to 1 minute. Though the audience in attendance was predominantly labor and company representatives in Phillips 66 uniform, there were hoots of disbelief from advocates that instead of the traditional 3 minute time allowed for public comment at most public hearings, in this instance an individual speaker would get only one minute. That an individual public comment on an issue of such magnitude and technical complexity would be limited to 1 minute is unheard of with such a small audience.
That the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors would come out of a ceremony dedicated to elevating the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr to immediately open an agenda item on the permitting of a controversial polluting industrial facility owned and operated by a company worth ~$60 billion dollars, and with a long legacy of conflict with affected communities, and tell concerned community members that their time to address the board would be abbreviated in this manner was roundly seen as outrageous — to put it in polite terms.
Even county staff knew, after all they had done to ram the project through, that limiting public comment at the hearing was simply a ‘very bad look.’ The clear obstruction of the public right to meaningful participation that was manifested by the limitation on public comment at the hearing on the Phillips 66 biofuels project clearly accentuates the corporate impunity facilitated by the irregular and industry friendly governance of not only the biofuel refinery issue specifically but of the energy sector in the state more broadly.
It made no difference to the acquiescent and beholden to industry Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, who rapidly moved to approve the Phillips 66 project with a unanimous 5-0 vote.
Contact Gary Hughes (garyhughes.bfw@gmail.com), who is the Americas Program Coordinator with Biofuelwatch, with inquiries.
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