Contra Costa Health officials said Tuesday they, along with officials from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, began a surprise inspection at the Martinez Refining Company on Tuesday afternoon that could last a few days to even weeks.
Matthew Kaufmann, CCH’s deputy director, said how long the agencies are at MRC — which is owned by PBF Energy Inc. — depends on what they find. He didn’t offer any preliminary information found during the inspection on Tuesday.
“Contra Costa Health is becoming increasingly concerned about the frequency of safety incidents at PBF over the past year,” Kaufmann said.
CCH said it will request records and observe MRC’s operation, focusing on safety programs, reliability of equipment and to follow up regarding several recent accidents.
On Thanksgiving night 2022, a chemical release began that lasted into the following morning. MRC didn’t report the release of 20 to 24 tons of spent catalyst into the community. CCH only found out about it two days later from residents on social media commenting on dust falling onto their front yards and vehicles.
Kaufman said, since the Thanksgiving release, there have been 46 flaring incidents reported by the refinery, as well as a few much smaller releases.
The most recent incident occurred Dec. 17 when flaring related to what MRC said was an “operational incident” two days before caused a grass fire near the refinery.
Kaufmann said Tuesday that MRC initially reported the fire to CCH and the community warning system, but not that it was caused by spilled hydrocarbon fluid ignited by a flaring that day. MRC later said on social media the grass was ignited by the heat of the flare.
“Typically flares will burn gases only, but it appears liquid got to the flare, spilled out of the flare, and ignited the brush that was in the vicinity,” Kaufmann said.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued four notices of violation to MRC over the incident.
Kaufmann also addressed MRC’s report to the Martinez City Council the following week, in which MRC said there was no detectable chemicals found outside the refinery afterward.
Kaufmann said CCH “felt it was necessary to either correct misinformation or provide accuracy to statements that were made by (the) refinery.”
“That was a statement that was made that there (were) odors in the neighborhood surrounding the refinery and that there was no measurement of any levels of chemicals found and that actually was not true,” Kaufmann said.
“At this incident, we conducted air monitoring and did find levels. Those levels were very low and not considered a health concern, but the community could smell sulfur compounds surrounding the community.”
CCH said in a statement Tuesday that, so far in 2023, there have been 21 documented releases or spills of hazardous materials at MRC.
“Repeated commitments to the community and to regulators to improve the culture of safety at PBF have not resulted in improvement,” Contra Costa County Supervisor Federal Glover, whose district includes the refinery, said in a statement. “We intend to hold PBF accountable for making the necessary investments to become a better neighbor.”
Board of Supervisors chair John Gioia and Glover, the vice chair, will meet with PBF’s corporate leadership at the facility on Thursday to discuss their concerns about how the refinery operates.
CCH will post more information about the investigation as it becomes available at cchealth.org.
Have at it!
Let us know what you find.
They have been at it for years! The city of Martinez has one of the highest cases of MS per capita. in COCO County id say that maybe something is in the air we breath. On foggy mornings you can see a blue tint in the fog and smell a sour chemical smell emitting from the air blowing down stream from the refinery.
Too much money involved to really ” Find” anything
So are you more of a blue cheese or do you prefer jack cheese?
Jack in the box or cracker Jacks definatelly.
First the bureaucrats have to get trained on things like “what is oil”, “how is it refined”, and does a lawmaker/lawyer/advocate ever have sufficient knowledge to intelligently discuss energy production. That’s why the fishing expedition will take months.
They should also start studying EV waste and battery disposal/recycling and then retire.
…. sounds like a witch hunt …. and they don’t know what they’re doing and / or don’t have enough to do for a month or so
MRC repeatedly tried to conceal its accidents and mishaps. They didn’t tell us about the spent catalyst on Thanksgiving, then they blamed a racoon for a flaring incident. More recently a grass fire was the scapegoat. It makes you wonder how much worse the working conditions are inside the refinery.
Connections and opinions …. No facts.
Your message is just trying to stir the pot up. Unless you know for a fact that the grass fire did not cause an issue …. Or that a raccoon did not cause the issue and you can PROVE it, you are just another bystander spouting off opinions without fact. I do not know if you have the education or experience to speak to this matter either, do you? I know my background, or refinery but safety is in my background, so I can only understand portions of what is happening. But I know enough to say that stirring the pot up does not help one bit.
For what it’s worth, the grass fire explanation was the refinery’s official statement. I can’t comment on the rest.
@Parent, What exactly is this proverbial “pot” you’re so worried about being stirred? Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than a few tons of spent catalyst being spewed all over town, can it?
BTW – Blaming a raccoon and grass fire, all come straight from the refinery’s PR team. You don’t need to be a trained safety officer to see that there a problematic pattern developing there.
IOW, a bunch of “Keystone Cops”. Such is the state of society these days. Inmates running the asylum.
Get rid of them. Clean up Martinez. Make a new mall where the refinery is.
Oh wow! Thank god!
Uh, in reality, what will happen is the feckless government bureaucracy will go the motions, send the refinery an angry demanding letter, fine them, collect the money for themselves,
and the refinery will on with business as usual.