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Refinery pressed for thousands more trees, millions in projects

BY STACEY SHEPARD, Californian staff writer
sshepard@bakersfield.com | Saturday, Sep 13 2008 12:00 PM

Last Updated: Monday, Sep 15 2008 8:07 AM

The Big West of California refinery expansion promises more gasoline and diesel, new jobs and a boost to the tax base.

But under new requirements, it could also mean 10,000 new trees and a multi-million dollar community fund for projects that reduce greenhouse gases.

The new mandates from county planners are based on recent responses to the project’s environmental impact report.

In the report released in June, Big West was required to spend about $13 to mitigate every new ton of carbon dioxide the expansion would produce. After the state Attorney General’s office and two other groups said that wasn’t enough, the county doubled the price to about $25 per ton.

“We came to the conclusion we needed to increase greenhouse gas mitigation,” said Lorelei Oviatt, a Kern County Planning Department division chief.

Under original designs, the expansion would produce an additional 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.

About 300,000 tons of additional CO2 would result from an alternate design called Alternative D that’s gained support from some opposed to Big West’s proposed use of a hazardous chemical.

The recent changes require Big West to:

• Plant 10,000 trees throughout the community.

• Establish a $5 million fund for future projects that reduce carbon output at the refinery.

• Create a $10 million fund for carbon reduction projects in Kern County, such as school bus engine replacements or providing solar power to schools. (The fund would total $2 million under Alternative D).

The June report called for 1,000 tree plantings and $1 million for community projects. The $5 million fund for future refinery projects has not changed.

“Initially, it just wasn’t enough,” said Tom Frantz, a Shafter resident and president of the local environmental group Association for Irritated Residents who urged the county to increase the mitigation requirements. “For any new project anywhere in the state, we want to have full mitigation for greenhouse gases, whether it’s a housing development or a refinery.”

Pushing also came from the state Attorney General’s office, which has pressed communities around the state to consider climate change when approving new growth and development.

Under the California Environmental Quality Act, project developers have long been required to alleviate significant impacts on such things as traffic, air quality and endangered species.

With passage of the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, planning agencies must now also consider a project’s impact to global warming. However, planners have gotten little guidance on determining a project’s impact.

The California Air Resources Board is drafting rules for greenhouse gases to meet the goal of reducing the state’s output to 1990 levels by 2020.

In the absence of those rules, the Attorney General’s office has been advocating full mitigation of any new sources of gases that contribute to warming.

Big West is one of the first major projects locally to fall under the new climate change requirement.

Company officials said they’re satisfied with the additional mitigation requirements.

“When you talk about greenhouse gases it’s so difficult to say what’s fair because there’s no formal guidance,” said Bill Chadick, Big West’s Health, Safety and Environmental director. “But we are comfortable with where we finished on those mitigations.”

John Moorhouse, board president of the Tree Foundation of Kern, lauded the new tree plantings.

“That’s a huge number,” Moorhouse said of the 10,000, noting it’s almost equal to 12,000 trees the foundation has planted since its founding in 1993.