The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) settlement with a northern California refinery to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act will benefit the entire region, according to an EPA regional administrator.
The EPA announced April 6 that Valero Refining-California will pay $1,224,550 to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act's Chemical Accident Prevention regulations at its refinery in Benicia, Calif. The company has also been ordered to improve process safety at the refinery.
“Failure to properly manage hazardous materials can pose serious risks to our California communities,” Martha Guzman, regional administrator of EPA Region 9, said in the news release. “This settlement will help protect Valero workers, the Benicia community, and the environment more broadly.”
EPA reports that "significant chemical incidents" in 2017 at the Benicia refinery triggered a 2019 EPA inspection at the facility. The investigation found multiple areas of noncompliance, according to the news release, including failing to immediately report releases of hazardous substances; update certain process safety information; adequately analyze certain process hazards; and develop and implement certain written operating procedures, the release reports.
Under the settlement, Valero must modify several pressure-relief valves and update its process of hazard analyzes to consider hazards of power loss at the facility. The company has already begun to implement these changes in response to EPA's inspection, the EPA states. The settlement requires the company to continue implementing safety improvements through June 2025.
Valero also must modify its reporting policies and operating procedures and improve employee training.
"The Benicia Refinery is one of thousands of facilities nationwide that make, use, and store extremely hazardous substances," EPA states in the news release. Reducing the risk of accidental releases at industrial and chemical facilities like the Benicia Refinery is one of EPA’s National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives."
Industrial and chemical facilities that store large quantities of hazardous substances are required by the Clean Air Act to create and enforce a Risk Management Plan to reduce accidental-release risks, according to the news release. A "catastrophic" accident could cause death, serious injury, damage to the community, evacuation or shelter-in-place orders and substantial harm to human health and the environment, the release states.
“This settlement sends a clear message that EPA will prosecute companies that fail to expend the resources needed to have a compliant, well-functioning Risk Management Plan to the fullest extent of the law,” Larry Starfield, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in the release.
