Breathing Fire: in their own words: Media Coverage
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Watchdog Groups Make Push Against Refinery Flares
Feb 23, 2005
By Ann Notarangelo
CBS5.com
www2.cbs5.com
Ethel Dotson believes many of her health problems are a direct result of the Chevron refinery near her Richmond home.
"You can see the black spot in my eye and the lines," she said. "I have breathing problems."
Dotson is one of a handful of local activists to want the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to ban the use of flaring by the region's five refineries. A new report from watchdog groups say the process coughs up too much toxic gas and it's making people sick.
"They should not be flaring. It's putting all the chemicals into community," she said.
Refineries say the flaring is a process for them to safely dispose of hydrocarbons by burning them.
"There aren't alternatives to flaring," said Chevron spokesperson Dean O'Hair. "Flares are safety devices to clean the equipment so workers can go in and safely maintain it, and for emergency situations when we have to take the plant down quickly."
The air district is in the process of writing new regulations for flaring. District board member Mark DeSaulnier says he expects the rules to be the strictest in the world.
"This is a civil rights issue," said Denny Larson of the National Refinery Reform Campaign. "They are dumping on poor people of color, and that's why it's incumbent on the air district to take action."
Of the 500 tons of pollution created every day in the Bay Area, the air district says refineries are responsible for two to four tons. And the air is getting cleaner overall. But for those who live in the shadows of these industrial giants, that's not enough.
"We do know they are polluting our community and we do know people in our community are sick," said Henry Clark of the West County Toxics Coalition.
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Activists aim to shut refineries' flare stacks
By Shirley Dang
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
RICHMOND - As a plan to regulate Bay Area refinery pollution heads for approval, activists are calling for more stringent controls on flare stacks that pump out tons of contaminates each day.
During a Wednesday protest, members of the West County Toxics Coalition toted orange cardboard flames on sticks outside Chevron Corp.'s Richmond gates Wednesday.
The group's head demanded that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District prohibit the use of flares, which refineries use to burn off excess gases created during refining.
"We have been bombarded with chemicals from this facility for a lifetime," said Henry Clark. He also called for the district to fine plants that use flaring, even as a safety measure to relieve dangerously built-up amounts of pressure.
Prohibiting flares seems very unlikely, said district spokeswoman Luna Salaver.
"You don't want a refinery to blow up," Salaver said. "That would be a worse problem than flaring."
The regional air quality agency will hold two public hearings on proposed regulations next month. The air district must create rules to moderate flares as part of a 2004 legal settlement with environmentalists. Regulations were also a part of a 2001 smog reduction plan.
Bay Area residents have complained about flares for more than 20 years but were told they contributed little to contamination. However recent district studies showed the Bay Area's 23 stacks at five petroleum refineries released at least 8 tons of organic compounds a day, according to a district fact sheet. Since those reports, emissions have dropped to about 2 tons.
The proposed regulations require refineries to submit a flare management plan to the district for approval. Under the plan, refineries would for the first time need to identify the amount and chemical makeup of incinerated gases and detail equipment and procedures that would limit flaring.
Use would be limited to startup, shutdown and to prevent unsafe conditions.
The residents' group says the regulations are too lenient.
For instance, the plan requires refineries to notify the agency of a flare if the flow rate tops 330 cubic feet a minute during 15 consecutive minutes.
"A lot of gas can come out in 14 minutes and 55 seconds," said Denny Larson, coordinator of the National Refinery Reform Campaign.
"This basically leaves a loophole in there," Larson said.
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Group Seeks Tougher Refinery Flare Regulations
February 23, 2005
KTVU.com
Oakland, CA
RICHMOND, Calif. -- A new report from oil refinery watchdog groups alleges Bay Area Air Quality Management District officials are not doing enough to reduce flare emissions and are succumbing to pressures from the industry.
"We don't believe the district has told the whole truth about what's going on with flaring, and we want them to do so in a way that can be verified," Denny Larson, spokesman for the National Refinery Reform Campaign, said today.
The refinery reform campaign and the West County Toxics Coalition are asking the district to develop a rule that would "clearly" prohibit any flaring, which vents excess gases, and that would impose fines on refineries that do flare.
The district is currently developing a flare rule, which would prohibit flaring except as necessary for the safe operation of the petroleum refinery, district spokeswoman Luna Salaver said today.
"If you don't release some of the product, it would create unsafe conditions at the refinery. There are instances when the refinery has no choice," Salaver said.
The district's proposed rule would also require all refineries to create a plan to curtail and minimize flaring at their facilities, according to Salaver.
If the flare rule were adopted, it would be the first of its kind in the world, Salaver said.
But Larson said the proposed regulation is not strong enough.
"This is more than a regulatory issue. It's a civil rights and environmental one that requires the strongest possible action," Larson said.
In the report, the groups accuse the district of underestimating the amount of gases being released. In 2002, the district estimated that there were 22 tons of emissions daily, according to the report. Today, air district staff estimates that an average of 8 tons of flare emissions are released daily, according to Salaver.
"These latest shaky recalculations are at odds with the body of science of flare reports and the district's report going back to 1989," Larson said. He alleges that the district denied his organization the information it would need to verify emissions.
But Salaver said the revised numbers are the result of more accurate gauge techniques and new compressors at refineries that reduce flaring.
She said the district plans to discuss the numbers and the proposed flaring rule at two public workshops. The first is scheduled for March 16 at the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors chambers and the second will be held March 24 at the Richmond City Council chambers. Both meetings are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.
Copyright 2005 by KTVU.com and Bay City News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Regulators accused of bowing to refiners
Officials downplay gas emissions in air, watchdog group says
Henry K. Lee
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Bay Area air quality regulators are bowing to pressure from the refinery industry and underestimating the amount of gases released by the region's refineries, a vocal watchdog group alleges in a report released Tuesday.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District also isn't doing enough to curtail a refinery procedure known as flaring, in which excess gases are burned off into the air to reduce pressure buildups, the West County Toxics Coalition said.
"The air district really has not told the public the whole truth," Denny Larson, coordinator of the National Refinery Reform Campaign, which is working with the coalition, said Tuesday. "They have been very clever in manipulating data and information, and that's unfortunate."
Air district spokeswoman Teresa Lee denied the accusations Tuesday, saying recently revised figures were the result of changes in methodology as well as a sharp decrease in emissions from 23 flares at the Bay Area's five refineries.
"Refineries are now under increased scrutiny, and they are doing all that they can to reduce emission from the flares," Lee said.
The air district, which covers seven Bay Area counties and parts of Solano and Sonoma counties, is developing a proposal to eliminate routine flaring, which does not include flaring that occurs during equipment startups, shutdowns or malfunctions.
"Routine flaring is prohibited except as necessary for the safe operation of the petroleum refinery or where, due to the quantity or quality of gas, it cannot reasonably be recovered, treated and used as fuel gas at the refinery," the proposed rule says.
If passed, the rule would require refineries to submit detailed plans mandating how each flare is managed.
Local environmental groups say the proposed rule isn't strong enough. But a group representing oil refineries said the rule, if approved, would be the first of its kind in the country.
The controversy began two years ago when the air district reported that refinery flares in the Bay Area occur almost daily and contribute 22 tons of gases daily that contribute to smog, which can be harmful to those with asthma or other respiratory illnesses.
But in an interview Tuesday, Dan Belik, rule development manager for the air district, said the figure should have been closer to 8 tons and that the most recent figure shows that Bay Area refineries are releasing an average of only 2 tons of gases a day. He credited the decrease in part to new compressors at refineries that reduce flaring by returning hydrocarbons to the refinery for use as fuel.
The 22-ton figure resulted because air-district officials made assumptions without analyzing actual data and included methane in their calculations, Belik said. Methane is a greenhouse gas but not an ozone-forming gas, Lee said.
Officials came up with revised figures after recalculating what percentage of the gas was burned, Belik said. Lee said, "There has been a lot of work refining the numbers."
Dennis Bolt, Bay Area coordinator for the Western States Petroleum Association, a trade group, said Tuesday that he believes the air district is still overestimating emissions from flares.
"And so if you're talking about succumbing to industry pressure, they're not doing a very good job about it," he joked.
E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.
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