Refinery toxicity greater concern than anything you'd find in the mail

Count me, too, among those jittery folks fretting about powdery substances, but don't look for me to ask for a Cipro boost in my next Jamba Juice smoothie. My concern, rather, is about the substances raining down from the sky periodically courtesy of our friendly neighbourhood oil refineries. As the two accidents in a four-day span at the Equilon refinery in Martinez clearly (well, hazily) show, refinery toxicity is a far more likely suburban scourge than anything you'd find opening your mail.
Sooner or later -- and lately it's definitely been sooner -- you know you'll hear that lonesome shelter-in-place whistle and that chilling phrase, "toxic airborne event," will rattle around in your brain and send you scurrying into a sealed house or classroom. Forget anthrax, smallpox and bubonic plague. People in Richmond, Rodeo, Avon (Baja Concord), Benicia and Martinez should be more concerned about Equilon, Ultramar, Tosco and Valero.

This is a much bigger public health concern than the current bio-terrorism hysteria gripping the citizenry. And yet, even affected residents have a fatalistic attitude, like the Mrs. Martinez I saw on TV who gazed at the yellowish-black plume overhead and sighed, "This is getting old." What really is getting old is the refineries' assertions that the current system of self-regulation is working. With every incident reported -- not to mention those daily "ambient" chemical releases at too low a level to sound the warning siren -- it simply proves that refineries cannot be trusted to make their facilities safe for the public and their workers.
But, hey, what can you do, right? Independent oversight? It's almost nonexistent, unless it's after-the-fact shutting down of cracked crackers after they've already spewed particulates over the citizenry.
Twice in the past three years, Contra Costa County Supervisor Donna Gerber has called for a stronger industrial safety ordinance to give the county, not the refineries, final say when safety changes are needed at plants. And twice, she has been voted down 4 to 1 by her colleagues, even though the state attorney general's office issued an opinion that counties do have the authority to order changes if they want to implement laws without fear of liability.

Every time the issue goes before the board, residents living near refineries and environmental groups plead for a stronger ordinance, but the board always caves to the refineries, who often use the we'll-leave-town-and- take-jobs threat. So, as it stands now, refinery officials report problems to the supervisors and tell them how they fixed it or why they chose not to, and all the supervisors can do is nod sagely and hope for the best.
But trust has to be earned, and with every incident these petroleum giants begin to resemble naughty schoolkids who swear they're sorry and say it won't happen again, really. Until, of course, it happens again.
"After everything we've seen before our very eyes, it's incredibly naive of the Board of Supervisors to think that the county doesn't need more leverage against the refining industry to protect public health and safety," said Gerber, who plans to try once more to strengthen the county's powers by bringing another proposal to the board on Dec. 4. "I mean, what else do people have a Board of Supervisors for? We need to be the people's advocate, not the refineries' advocate." Gerber's contention that the county's refinery ordinance lacks teeth is correct, and that is especially worrisome because state and federal agencies also are toothless.

There's the federal Chemical Safety and Hazardous Investigation Board, but Congress gave it no authority to order changes for fear it would hurt the agency's independence in investigating accidents. The state, too, imposes no preventive regulation, but it does impose hefty fines after accidents, such as Tosco's nearly $ 1 mm slap on the wrist after the 1999 accident that killed four workers.
Fines are, well, fine. But it's hardly proactive, and a cynic would suspect the refineries have money budgeted for such expenses -- less costly, perhaps, than making wholesale upgrades on aging machinery. I've heard the arguments put forth by refinery experts repeated like a mantra at many a Board of Supervisors meeting. It goes like this: Only people employed by the refineries know what to look for. And besides, independent inspectors would compromise delicate petroleum trade secrets, which if exposed would cost the companies billions.
Oh, and you think gas prices are high now, well, just wait until you force us to make these too-strict changes....

Martinez Councilman Mark Ross, who also sits on a Bay Area Air Quality Management District board, says he is fed up with the refineries' tired refrain.
"I've worked in the petroleum industry and I've been in every refinery," Ross said. "Yes, it's a very complex process, and it's amazing more incidents don't happen because (refineries) just push, push, push for every dime they can get. I understand business competition, but when they make a mistake, it affects the people's lives. These are not the times for the refineries to tell us, 'Well, this happened and forgive us.' We don't need this kind of disruption and threat in our lives, especially now with other threats out there."
Indeed, when the black soot started falling on Martinez like some scene out of Dickensian London, two diners at a nearby restaurant joked that the noxious cloud might be the work of terrorists. But no, it was another kind of scary threat -- refinery workers firing up the ol' cracker again.