Supervisor Pressures County to Get More Data on Chevron Refinery Flaring

For the third time in the last six months, local air regulators and Contra Costa County health officials are looking into a problem at Chevron's Richmond refinery.

Large flames and black smoke shot out of the facility for three hours on Saturday morning after one of the refinery's hydrocracking units, which helps turn gas-oil into gasoline, failed.

"The refinery lost one of its hydrocrackers and sent a lot of fuel to the flares," said Randy Sawyer, Contra Costa's chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer.

That "upset" built up pressure inside the unit, leading to "some intermittent flaring," Chevron spokeswoman Leah Casey said.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is investigating and could penalize Chevron if it violated air regulations.

Initially, the county did not plan on asking Chevron for a 72-hour report on the incident because it was not expected to have a health impact on the community, Sawyer said Tuesday morning.

"Any smoke in the environment is not good, but this situation did not warrant a health advisory," he said.

But that worried Supervisor John Gioia, who represents the area.

"It was a pretty visible flaring event," Gioia said in an interview. "It clearly was seen and impacted the broader community," he said. "I'm concerned because ... there was an underlying equipment failure and ... there was a release of gas through flares."

Sawyer then changed his mind.

"After discussing the incident with Supervisor Gioia, I decided that a 72-hour report was warranted," Sawyer said in an email Tuesday afternoon.

Chevron is now required to send the report to the county by the close of business on Friday.

The company says it promptly reported the flaring to the local government agencies that oversee the refinery and said that the incident was not a threat to public health.

"We understand that the sight of the flare may have caused concern, but we want to assure our neighbors that occasional flaring is an important part of keeping the refinery running safely," Casey said in an email.

She emphasized that flares help the refinery operate safely and that the part of the refinery that had trouble on Saturday is back online.

"The unit is performing at a safe posture and the refinery continues to supply the market and fulfill commitments to our customers," Casey said.

But it took three days for Chevron to reveal information about Saturday's upset, a delay that frustrates Gioia.

"I have been in contact with Chevron over this and other flaring incidents," Gioia said. "You need to be honest and transparent with the public about what's happening when these events occur. They should not be minimizing the significance of what happened."

Saturday's incident is the third problem in the last six months at Chevron.

On March 29 and June 19, the refinery had separate processing unit problems that led to unplanned flaring.

"It is normal for those of us who live in Richmond and see the flare to wonder what's going on," Gioia said. "Having these flaring events on these occasions is bad for Chevron, and it's not something the community wants to accept."