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More
than two months after an explosion
erupted at the Chevron oil refinery in
El Segundo, neither the company nor the
regulators responsible for monitoring
the facility have released details on
the cause and the extent of the
environmental fallout.
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Here’s
what we do know so far: Around 9:30
p.m.on Oct. 2, a large fire broke out in
the southeast corner of the refinery,
where Chevron turned crude oil into jet
fuel. The resulting violent blast
allegedly wounded several workers on the
refinery grounds and rattled homes up to
one mile away.
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The
refinery carried out emergency flaring
in an effort to burn off potentially
hazardous gases, as public officials
told residents in neighborhoods nearby
to stay indoors. That warning held until
firefighters managed to extinguish the
fire the following day.
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The
South Coast Air Quality Management
District — the agency responsible for
regulating the refinery’s emissions —
said Chevron would submit reports
detailing the potential cause of the
fire and any unexpected equipment
failures within 30 days. But the
preliminary reports were handed in
nearly a month late — and without any
significant updates from what was said
in the days immediately following the
fire.
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In
those reports, Chevron said the fire was
“unexpected and unforeseeable.” The
cause is still under an investigation
that probably won’t conclude until next
month, an air district spokesperson told
me recently.
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Company
officials said the fire significantly
damaged power supply, utilities and gas
collection systems in that section of
the refinery. Repairs are underway but
could take months. Meanwhile, the
majority of the 1,000-acre refinery is
operational, distilling crude oil into
gasoline and diesel.
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At
an air district
meeting on Dec. 2, Chevron asked
for leniency from conducting equipment
testing at the damaged wing of the
refinery that is now offline, and the
air district obliged.
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One
member of the agency’s hearing board,
Cynthia Verdugo-Peralta, said she
understood that the investigation was
“quite involved” but stressed the need
for “some type of response” from Chevron
on the cause.
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“I’m
hoping that this will never happen
again,” she said. “Hopefully this repair
will indeed be a full repair and there
won’t be another incident like this.”
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Environmental
regulators like the South Coast Air
Quality Management District often rely
on the very industries that they oversee
to arrange for monitoring and
investigations into disasters. For
obvious reasons, that’s not ideal.
Experts say this system of
self-reporting is somewhat inevitable,
given that many government agencies lack
the staffing, budget and access to
provide adequate oversight.
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But
it often leaves the public waiting for
answers — and skeptical of the findings,
when they finally arrive.
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For
example, there are still serious
questions surrounding the air monitoring
systems at Chevron’s El Segundo refinery
that were supposed to act as a safety
net for the public nearby during
emergencies like the October fire.
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Under
state law, refineries are required to
install, operate and maintain real-time
fence line air monitors. Indeed, over
four hours after the Oct. 2 fire at El
Segundo, Chevron’s fence
line air monitors detected
elevated levels of volatile organic
compounds, a category of quickly
vaporizing chemicals that can be harmful
if inhaled.
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However,
at the time of the incident, the
refinery’s monitors oddly did not detect
any elevated levels of some of the most
common types chemicals that experts say
would have been likely to be released
during such a fire, such as
cancer-causing benzene, a typical
byproduct of burning fossil fuels.
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Experts
are now asking whether those monitors
were fully functioning at the time.
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Earlier
this month, the Bay Area Air Quality
Management District fined Chevron’s
refinery in Richmond $900,000
after the agency found 20 of the oil
company’s fence line monitors were not
properly calibrated to detect the full
range of emissions, potentially allowing
excessive air pollution to go undetected
and unreported.
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As
for the El Segundo facility, neither the
South Coast air district nor the
refinery could confirm whether the air
monitors were working properly on Oct.
2. A spokesperson said the air district
is scheduled to audit Chevron’s fence
line air monitoring network sometime
next year.
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But
it may already be too late to warn
nearby communities. Since October’s
explosion, there have been more than a
dozen reported incidents of unplanned
flaring at Chevron’s refinery in El
Segundo, according to air district
data.
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Each
one raises the question: What happened?
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More
news on air pollution
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The
holiday season is associated with
fragrant candles, incense and gathering
around the fireplace. But health experts
say these
traditions should be done in
moderation to avoid
respiratory risks, according to
Associated Press reporter Cheyanne
Mumphrey.
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That’s
especially true in Southern California,
where the air district continues to
issue no-burn
advisories, prohibiting
burning wood to limit unhealthy levels
of soot, per Pasadena Now.
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Almost
a year after the Eaton and Palisades
fires, the health effects from breathing
wildfire smoke are still coming into
focus. L.A. Times science and medicine
reporter Corrine Purtill writes that emergency
room visits rose 46% for
heart attacks at Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center in the 90 days after the fires.
The findings suggest the death toll
could be much higher than the 31
fatalities that have been linked with
the fires.
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California
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta
sued the Trump administration
— for the 50th time — after the
suspension of $3 billion in federal
funding that Congress approved for
building more electric vehicle chargers,
according to Times climate reporter
Hayley Smith. California alone stands to
lose out on $179.8 million in grants
that could help reduce smog and
greenhouse gases.
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A
few last things in climate news
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The
Trump administration announced it will
dismantle the National Center for
Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of
the world’s premier Earth science
research institutions, per reporting
from the New
York Times. Scientists fear
this could undermine weather forecasting
in an age when global warming is
contributing to more intense storms and
other natural disasters.
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A
new analysis from Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution found the rate
of sea-level
rise has more than doubled
along U.S. coastlines over the last 125
years, according to Washington Post
environmental reporter Brady Dennis. The
research rebuts a controversial federal
assessment published this summer that
concluded there was no acceleration in
rising ocean waters.
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The
U.S. and Europe continue to abandon
their electric vehicle aspirations,
ceding the clean car market to China,
Bloomberg auto reporter Linda Lew
writes. The European Commission recently
scrapped an effective ban on combustion
engine vehicles by 2035, and Ford Motor
Co. walked away from plans to
significantly overhaul its EV production
— including the imminent demise of its
all-electric Ford 150 Lightning truck.
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