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Police, fire unions oppose Rosedale refinery expansion
| Wednesday, Apr 16 2008 5:31 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Apr 17 2008 8:40 AM
City police and firefighters unions announced Wednesday that they’ve joined the newly-formed community group Bakersfield Citizens Against Hydrofluoric Acid in opposing the use of a caustic chemical in a planned expansion at the Big West refinery.
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Bill Ware, president of Bakersfield Police Officers Association, which represents 350 officers, said the union concluded the use of modified hydroflouric acid would pose serious risks to the community surrounding the Rosedale Highway facility.
“It creates a major public safety issue not just because of all the dangers to responding officers but just the general public,” Ware said.
Bakersfield Citizens Against Hydrofluoric Acid announced a campaign earlier this month to convince the refinery to abandon plans to use modified hydrofluoric acid in favor of sulfuric acid, an alternative the group believes is safer. The groups members include concerned residents and members of the Kern County Firefighters union. State Sen. Dean Florez has also opposed the chemical’s use.
Modified hydrofluoric acid is an amended version of hydrofluoric acid, which gained a bad reputation as a dangerous chemical after several deadly releases at U.S. refineries in the 1980s and 1990s. HF, as its known, can form a ground-hugging cloud when spilled that can travel for several miles, harming and possibly killing those in its path. Modified HF, however, contains an additive that release the chemical’s ability to vaporize by up to 80 percent.
The refinery would use modified HF in new alkylation units it wants to build as part of a $700 million expansion to boost gasoline and diesel output.
Refinery officials maintain the chemical is safe and that its risks are no greater than sulfuric acid.
“I think there's a lot of misinformation getting around,” said Bill Chadick, the refinery's health, safety and environmental director. “We are eager to sit down and talk to any group or agency that would like to hear the facts about our decision.”
Chadick said refinery officials decided against sulfuric acid in part because of the large quantity of acid that would be transported to the facility by truck. Because less modified HF would be used, it would mean less truck trips and a decreased chance of a spill in transit.
Experts widely agree that modified HF and sulfuric acid are safer than pure HF. But there is no clear consensus on whether one of them is safer than the other.
"Needless Risk," a 2005 U.S. Public Interest Research Group study on the dangers of HF, stated that both sulfuric acid and modified HF significantly reduced community danger.
In a Californian interview last year, Cal Hodge, president of A 2nd Opinion, a fuels consulting firm in Texas, said modified HF and sulfuric acid are equally safe.
Modified HF was also seen as an acceptable alternative by Southern California air regulators who pushed in 2002 to ban pure HF at its refineries. Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said the use of sulfuric acid was pushed by environmentalists at the time. But the district recognized the potential hazards associated with the amount of transport it required.
Atwood also said there have been no major incidents at either of the two Southland refineries now using modified HF.