RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail Story
Refinery expansion critics eagerly await report’s outcome
| Saturday, Feb 16 2008 9:20 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Feb 16 2008 9:40 PM
Plans to expand Big West of California’s Rosedale Highway refinery are about to move forward again after concerns about the risks to surrounding neighborhoods and schools ground them to a halt.
BAKERSFIELD.COM HOT TOPICS:
Loading Stories
Advertisement
To view video for this story
please update your Flash player
Photos:
The Big West of California refinery on Rosedale Highway is seeking to expand its operations. Three Central Valley lawmakers voiced their support for the expansion in a letter submitted to The Californian Monday.
Related Stories:
A new environmental report on the project is due out in the next few months, prompted by concerns that the first one did not adequately address safety issues and the dangers of a hazardous chemical to be used.
Refinery executives and county officials declined to discuss the revised report until it’s made public — something that keeps getting pushed back — but said it will better address the criticism.
“We listened to the public when they said they wanted something safer,” said refinery Health, Safety and Environmental Director Bill Chadick.
Residents say they’ll see about that when they get the report.
THE PROJECT
The refinery wants to increase production of gasoline and diesel by 65 percent, to about 3 million gallons per day, by upgrading and adding new equipment. The lack of equipment now requires it to export about one-third of its product to refineries in Southern California and the Bay Area for further processing.
The biggest concern is the refinery’s plan to use a hazardous chemical called hydrofluoric acid, or HF. The chemical’s been shunned by most other refineries in the state following its role in deadly explosions in the late 1980s and fears that a spill would create dangerous vapors capable of migrating up to five miles.
Big West said last year the refinery would instead use a less dangerous form of the acid, but experts contend it could choose an even safer alternative.
THE CRITICS
Project critics are eagerly anticipating the new report.
The initial one was “seriously flawed,” said Gloria Smith, a Bay Area attorney representing residents near the refinery, facility workers and local environmentalists.
“From start to finish it had not properly addressed all the impacts associated with the project,” she said. “There were serious problems, especially with the schools nearby.”
Smith assembled a team of consultants with decades of experience in environmental management of industrial facilities, which found the report understated the dangers of HF and failed to explore alternatives to the chemical.
Consultant Phyllis Fox, a licensed chemical engineer, said the lack of detail was alarming but not uncommon. Industrial facilities seeking permits often withhold project details to lower the cost of mitigating possible environmental threats.
“They encourage their consultants not to lay all the cards on the table, hoping the regulators won’t catch it,” Fox said. “The local permitting agencies get bamboozled. They don’t know anything about HF, or they would have done more with it” in the first environmental report.
Smith’s consultants also found the report lacked any information about major soil contamination that could pose health risks to workers or students at the nearby Vista West High School if disturbed during construction.
Consultant Matt Hagemann, who used to work in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s superfund and hazardous waste program, said concentrations of lead and chromium in soil at the refinery are so high in some places, they meet the state’s criteria for hazardous waste.
“It’s not surprising that there would be these concentrations of contaminants at a refinery,” Hagemann said. “What’s surprising is that it wasn’t mentioned in the (environmental report), and no provisions were made for protecting someone who would come in contact with these contaminants.”
Chadick denied Big West purposely cut corners in its environmental report. The company, he said, hired respected consultants to assist in the effort.
“At no point would they ever recommend anything that’s not safe or not a prudent design for a safe refinery,” Chadick said.
PROBLEMS ALREADY
Current refinery operations have also become an issue in the expansion.
Following odor complaints, gas releases and related flaring the past two years, Kern County Environmental Health Services Director Matt Constantine considered seeking criminal charges against the company. Constantine instead required it to spend money to prevent future gas releases and provide better information to the community when heavy odors or releases occur.
At least once, a gas release at the refinery made nearby residents sick and led to an informal evacuation of the Lowe’s store next door, Constantine said.
“My concern is, I don’t want to drag this out,” Constantine said of his decision not to send the case to the District Attorney’s office for possible charges. “We need to get through this and remediate this so it doesn’t happen again.”
Constantine said he’s compiling a list of the facility’s violations to get a better picture of its safety record as the expansion project proceeds through permitting.
Refinery officials have said releases are normal at refineries and that inspections of more than 120,000 refinery components are checked every three months to ensure safety.
“Flaring is a refinery safety device,” Chadick said. “It’s needed. It’s important at every refinery.”
EXPANSION APPROVAL
1. The Kern County Planning Commission must approve the project. If the commission’s decision is appealed, the Board of Supervisors would have the final say.
The county Planning Department plans to issue a revised environmental impact report in the next few months. The public then can submit written comments on it. People can also voice their opinion during a public hearing prior to the commission vote. (Dates for these have not yet been announced.)
2. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District must issue a permit authorizing the project. This requires the refinery to submit a plan to comply with air regulations. The air district also reviews the project to ensure it won’t drastically increase the concentration of pollution in the air.
3. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must issue an air permit. It held a public hearing on the permit in December and took written comments through January. The agency is now reviewing those comments and expects to issue a final decision in several months.
THE BIG PICTURE
Big West’s expansion plans come as refineries nationwide try to squeeze as much gasoline and diesel as possible out of each barrel of oil.
Following a trend of refinery closures in the 1980s and 1990s, the United States now faces a shortage of refining capacity to meet the increased demand for transportation fuel in recent years.
On top of that, no new refinery has been built nationwide since the 1970s due to the high costs, environmental standards and community opposition.
The situation is especially pronounced in California, where the state’s strict standards for clean-burning fuel limit the ability to buy fuel from refineries outside the state.
California refineries have dwindled from 32 in the 1980s to 14 today, so remaining facilities continually search for new ways to boost output.
Like Big West, several other California refineries have plans or have already undertaken major facility upgrades or expansions aimed at producing more gas and diesel.
If Big West’s project is approved, it would increase the facility’s output from 6 percent to 9 percent of the state’s diesel and from 2 percent to 4 percent of the state’s gasoline.