The Benicia City Council voted Tuesday evening to approve Mayor Elizabeth Patterson’s request to agendize discussion of a city Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO) for a future council meeting.

Patterson said the need for an ISO “became apparent” following the May 5 incident where a power outage at the Valero Benicia Refinery led to a large plume of black smoke being released from the refinery for hours and the Industrial Park being evacuated. However, she said an ISO was attempted in the early 2000s following a series of incidents shortly after Valero acquired the Exxon Benicia Refinery, including a pallet that caught fire. As a result, Patterson said, the city and Valero reached a letter of understanding that Valero would pay for an assessment and evaluation of safety issues, operations and management.

“The firm that we obtained was from Santa Barbara, and I have to say it was a very professional job and was very helpful for us to understand,” Patterson said.

Patterson said that Valero embraced the firm and went through the steps necessary to improve their operations. She also said Valero entered a program by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (CalOSHA) and became one of only two refineries in California to be recognized as a Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) safety refinery.

“Valero’s reputation in the state of California has been one of extreme safety,” she said, “and yet, that is not adequate, and that was demonstrated on May 5.”

Among the inadequacies Patterson noted were the potential loss of power in a seismic event and the lack of real-time pollution information.

Patterson’s proposed solution was to provide an ISO modeled after Contra Costa County’s ordinance, which provides safety regulations for three of the county’s four refineries, the Chevron refinery being subject to the city of Richmond’s version of the ordinance. Contra Costa’s ordinance has been nationally recognized by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

“The value of going through an Industrial Safety Ordinance is to learn what Contra Costa County has benefited from,” Patterson said.

Patterson referenced data to demonstrate that the Contra Costa refineries have made safety improvements since the early ‘90s.

“They have less accidents, they have better employee safety and they have better communication in the county,” she said. “Nothing is ever perfect, but it’s vastly improved.”

Patterson said Benicia could benefit from the Contra Costa ordinance providing the public with the right to know.

“It’s something that’s dependable,” she said. “It engages the public. What I want to do is be able to put a package together that meets the needs of the residents of Benicia, relies on expert practice with the state and Contra Costa practices on the industrial side on site with the employees, with the reporting necessary and with some of the local air monitoring that we want to incorporate that the Air District is working on.”

These goals, Patterson said, would be the first of a two-step process. She remarked that she already had the support of John Gioia, the chair of the Stationary Source Committee.

Marilyn Bardet, a resident, expressed support for the proposed ordinance.

“The time has come for this, and the May 5 incident proves it,” she said.

Bardet said a major concern on May 5 was that residents did not have timely information on what was in the air.

“We won’t get a report on that for weeks, maybe even months, because there’s no requirement to report,” she said. “There’s no requirement to report on the day of the incident at this point. At least the safety ordinance, as Contra Costa has it, would require a report within 72 hours.”

Another resident, Jenny O’Connor, also supported further discussion and adoption of the ordinance. She detailed how she had dropped her son off at school on May 5, received the alert of the shelter-in-place at his school and then saw the black smoke coming from the refinery as she drove by.

“It was very concerning to not know what was going into our air and how that would affect us,” she said. “For me, I think it’s really important as a member of the community, for my kids, for my parents who live here and for all of us that we have a really good understanding of what is coming into the air and that there is that right to know.”

Sue Fisher Jones, a public affairs manager for Valero, felt that a citywide ISO would be superfluous given that CalOSHA recently enacted a statewide ISO regulation. Fisher Jones believed that a statewide regulation would supersede a city-level ordinance.

“This would make an effort by the city to net an ISO redundant,” she said.

Fisher Jones also felt that an ISO would not have prevented the May 5 incident, citing a 2010 incident at the Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery in 2010 where Pacific Gas & Electric cut power leading to a similar disruption.

“This refinery had more cogeneration power than it consumed, but it was also knocked offline by this incident,” she said. “The way PG&E handled the power grid at the time was a similar situation to what we have here in Benicia.”

Fisher Jones also noted that six full-time engineers are required to manage Contra Costa’s ISO and that there would be additional financial costs. She also requested that the city examine options to “hold PG&E responsible for reliable power assuring us, Valero, the business community, the citizens and the city that this incident would not happen again.”

Councilmember Alan Schwartzman asked Fisher Jones if Valero would be considering anything to prevent the incident from happening again. She said it was very early in the investigation process, but she assumed some of the discussions will be taking place as the investigations continue.

Vice Mayor Steve Young said he would be willing to support the request and also echoed the concerns residents addressed about the need for a backup power generator.

The council voted 4-1 to approve the first step of the mayor’s request. The lone dissenting vote came from Councilmember Mark Hughes, who felt it was too early to have an ISO discussion as investigations were ongoing, although he indicated he may be willing to support it in the future. Despite voting in favor of the ordinance, councilmembers Schwartzman and Tom Campbell expressed concerns that it was adding new responsibilities to a short-staffed city’s plate. Patterson felt the cost to the city would be a concern but that past ordinances have demonstrated that a group effort could lead to progress.

In other business, the council introduced the 2017-19 proposed General Fund Budget and provided an update on the Citywide User Fee Study.

The council will next meet at 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 6.