Chevron's report on power outage at Richmond refinery lists chemicals released
Chevron's report on power outage at Richmond refinery lists chemicals release
The flames and columns of smoke Monday at the Chevron refinery in Richmond alarmed residents who could see the flaring from miles away. On Friday, Contra Costa County's Hazardous Materials Program Director Nicole Heath said Chevron did submit a mandatory report 72 hours after the incident as required.
RICHMOND, Calif. - The flames and columns of smoke Monday at the Chevron refinery in Richmond alarmed residents who could see the flaring from miles away.
On Friday, Contra Costa County's Hazardous Materials Program Director Nicole Heath said Chevron did submit a mandatory report 72 hours after the incident as required.
The new report said an electrical power line first failed around 11:30 Monday morning, eliminating backup power to a portion of the Richmond refinery.
Chevron says as workers tried to solve the problem, another power failure at 3:25pm caused a steam generating system to fail. That prompted the emergency burnoff or flaring of gasses that lasted overnight until Tuesday morning.
"It is not expected that you would have both your normal sources and backup sources fail at the same time, so I think we are waiting to get that information to fully understand what occurred," said Heath.
Heath says a county engineer was at the refinery Monday and a hazmat team responded to the site.
Chevron's report indicates that the materials released Monday were sulfur dioxide, methane, other hydrocarbons and hydrogen sulfide.
Monitoring sites around Chevron showed all levels below state and federal limits, according to the refinery's data and data collected by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the county.
"When our team was going out and performing their monitoring, they did not find any public health impacts as a result of that flaring," said Heath.
Heath says the mild winds and weather also helped keep the emissions high in the air.
"Had the wind been blowing in a different direction, it could have been a very different incident and could have resulted in a different designation," said Heath.
Still, residents say Chevron's report is concerning.
"Is that actually normal? Is that what happens when there's a power outage? And why was there an outage?" said Nina Flores of Richmond.
"Backups shouldn't go out at the same time, so otherwise your backup system doesn't work very well," said Cliff Ritz of Richmond.
"For them to lose primary and secondary tells me a lot of like, maybe we need to push towards building their infrastructure a little bit better," said Amit Gill of Hercules.
Chevron is required to submit a report every 30 days until the investigation is completed.
Featured
100 complaints logged over flaring at Chevron Richmond refinery, air quality district investigating
Flaring at the Chevron Richmond refinery Monday is under investigation by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District after workers burned off gasses following an unexpected power outage affecting part of the facility.