An update on the May 5 flaring at the Valero Benicia Refinery is on the City Council agenda for Tuesday and will be provided by Jim Lydon, the fire chief and acting assistant city manager. No additional information or supplemental documents on the item were presented in the agenda.
A power outage at 6:30 a.m., Friday, May 5 resulted in a large plume of black smoke being released for several hours, resulting in an evacuation of the Industrial Park and nearby Robert Semple and Matthew Turner elementary schools establishing shelters-in-place. The lockdown was lifted around 5 p.m. that afternoon.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) indicated that it is working with local, state and federal agencies in response to the incident and will continue to monitor the situation at the refinery. Earlier this week, the BAAQMD issued Valero with four excess visible emissions violations and two public nuisance violations.
In a recent e-alert mailing, Mayor Elizabeth Patterson thanked city staff for how they handled the situation and noted that there would be a debriefing with the parties involved followed by a report. Patterson also wrote that she expected to bring forward issues to be addressed regarding regulations, public access to real-time data, the necessity for operational and emergency preparedness, public health improvements and other concerns raised by residents in the aftermath of the incident. She also brought up questions people had been asking, including why some residents claimed they did not hear the sirens despite living within a quarter mile from the refinery, estimated costs of business loss in the Industrial Park, potential compensation for those business losses, the need for backup power independent of Pacific Gas & Electric, what the city’s evacuation plan is and other inquiries.
City officials have defended the refinery’s decision to continue periodic flaring, a process at all Bay Area refineries intended to burn pollutants and particulates which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. The refinery also announced that it switched its flaring process from the northern to the southern flare to allow further time for complete inspection.
In other business, the council will consider allocating Measure C surplus funds to other Measure C projects, and it will consider the adoption of an ordinance to allow mini pigs to be kept as pets as well as a resolution for licensing fees for the pigs.
The Council will meet at 7 p.m., Tuesday in the Council Chambers at City Hall, located at 250 E L St. There will be an earlier closed session at 5 p.m. to discuss legal matters.
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The cause of the flaring was a PG&E failure so PG&E should pay all fines and costs.
I noted that somebody posted a link to a BH article recently (from 2010, I believe) which seemed to infer that there is a backup power system present at the refinery. If this is true, I have to wonder why this system did not kick-in upon losing one of the PG&E feeds.
Very simple. Ask Valero . Do you remember the scrubber installation? Ask Valero and I do believe you will get an answer. I know but you go find out for yourself.
Maybe it’s bias on my part, but it feels a bit unreasonable to me to persue “public nuisance violations” for this. The flaring of the towers is the best possible option to handle these issues, and while the levels of emission were above what they should be, from what I’ve found they are still far below what is considered any sort of health threat. Certainly, this event should make Valero consider ways to prevent this from occurring again, if possible. At the same time, knee-jerk demonizing of a refinery doesn’t seem fair. Some may dislike having a refinery at such close proximity, but if it were to leave, a number of luxuries Benicia enjoys would likely start to diminish as well. It’s important to study and understand the how and why of the particular event and not simply fall to fear over the flare-ups.