Congressman Addresses Refinery Fire at Martinez City Council Meeting

Mark DeSaulnier suggests that county consider "full-facility audit" similar to what happened at Avon facility following 1990s fatalities, says PBF Energy must "play by the community standards here."

During a presentation to the Martinez City Council on Wednesday about community funding projects, U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Walnut Creek, also addressed the recent fire at PBF Energy’s Martinez refinery, suggesting that a comprehensive audit of the facility may be appropriate to ascertain the root of the safety problems that have plagued it since 2022.

As he did during a town hall last year, the congressman also recounted the checkered safety history of another local refinery and the corporate connection between it and PBF.

“The person who started PBF used to be the CEO at a company called Tosco,” DeSaulnier said, then referencing five fatalities that occurred under Tosco’s ownership of the Avon refinery outside Martinez (now owned by Marathon), including a fire that killed four in 1999.

DeSaulnier, who was a Contra Costa County supervisor at the time of the Tosco fatalities, recalled how safety concerns at that refinery helped lead to the Contra Costa County Industrial Safety Ordinance, which in turn authorized the county to conduct a “full-facility audit” that shut down the Avon refinery and lasted nearly a year.

“It came back and said the root cause of all these incidents was the corporate culture, which I’ll never forget,” he said.

DeSaulnier told the council that one of the four criteria for a full-facility audit is an incident causing at least $500,000 in damages. Acknowledging that he was unaware of the damage total from the Feb. 1 fire that raged out of control for several hours, he said, “I’m pretty sure it would be over that threshold.”

While DeSaulnier said he did not know enough details about the Feb. 1 fire to advocate outright for a full-facility audit, he added: “The county could require that. Personally, I think it would be a good idea. It’s more than just a compliance check or a safety audit. It worked very well the one time we used it at Marathon (then Tosco).”

The Martinez refinery underwent both an unannounced inspection from Contra Costa Health in response to a flurry of incidents in 2022-23, and a regularly scheduled triennial audit by the agency, last year.

DeSaulnier, whose district does not encompass the refinery itself but does include fence-line neighborhoods, acknowledged that the refinery is a major source of good-paying jobs and tax revenues for the community and county.

“We are transitioning right now, particularly in California, to renewables and alternative fuels,” he said. “We still need them in the transition, but we expect them to play by the community standards here, and the community standards here are higher than in Louisiana and Texas and a lot of places overseas.”

DeSaulnier’s comments largely echoed what he said at the refinery town hall last March, when he also questioned PBF’s corporate culture.

“It was a big deal,” Councilman Jay Howard told DeSaulnier on Wednesday. “I think you caught people off guard with how frank and honest you were with your comments. I really want to thank you for that.”

Howard said he would love if DeSaulnier and fellow U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, whose district includes the refinery property, could take part in an upcoming fire-related town hall planned by county Supervisor Shanelle Scales-Preston (who was formerly an aide to DeSaulnier and has also floated the idea of a facility audit). The town hall is tentatively scheduled for March 13 (details to be announced), according to Zorn.

“It shows the community how much you do care about us,” Howard said. “We do feel like the county is the big brother, and the citizens of Martinez are maybe feeling a little stepped on. We appreciate you being our champion.”

Mayor Brianne Zorn thanked DeSaulnier for the cooperation of his office, along with Garamendi’s, during and after the Feb. 1 fire, contrasting the heightened level of communication between the city and its local representatives with what occurred after the November 2022 spent catalyst release from the same refinery that caused significant community angst. “We’ve made a lot of really good progress knowing who to call, when to call,” she said. “From the bottom of my heart, I very much appreciate that there were people that were paying attention. I think the city of Martinez was kind of left on their own the first time. This time around, it was very helpful to have.”

Unrelated to the refinery fire, Zorn and Howard both expressed concern about the status of federal grants under the Trump administration. Zorn addressed a $2.6 million earmark designated for renovating the fishing pier at the marina.

“We are very aware that federal changes may have impacts to the funding for the project that we have already started and that we thought we would be reimbursed for,” she said.

In response to a question from Howard about the prospects for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change grant of up to $20 million that could jumpstart the city’s broader marina blueprint, DeSaulnier said he would try to help but that the EPA’s Region 9 office has suffered from chronic staffing shortages.

“EPA is tough because of Region 9,” DeSaulnier said. “If you remember, during the first administration of President Trump, he targeted Region 9, and they did early buyouts and we lost a lot of really good people. So they’ve struggled to sort of rebuild the workforce.”

In other refinery-related news:

Refinery worker calls for inspections: Marcial Barrera Jr., a Mountain View resident who said he has worked at several local refineries, expressed concern for the safety of his neighborhood during public comment at Wednesday’s council meeting, calling for more inspections of the PBF refinery. “I understand what goes on in refineries, how refineries work,” he said. “All these refineries, the key thing is safety. We’ve got a lot of youth here, a lot of elderly people here, and they just want to be safe. I just want to be safe, and I want the refineries to step up and do their job because it’s hurting the neighborhood.”

PBF Energy’s financial health deteriorates: The Feb. 1 fire that shuttered the refinery is the latest blow to PBF’s bottom line, which has steadily deteriorated over the past year along with its stock price.

PBF’s share price has fallen over 50% in the past year, and the slide has only accelerated since the fire. PBF stock closed at $29.36 on Jan. 31, the day before the massive fire, which was already well off its 52-week high of $62.88. On Friday, it closed at $23.20.

The company also reported dismal fourth-quarter earnings this month, with a loss of $289.3 million, or $2.82 per share, compared with 41 cents a share a year earlier, and its revenue fell from $9.14 billion to $7.35 billion. The fire is expected to further weigh on its financial health going forward, with PBF saying in its earning announcement on Feb. 13 that its “forward-looking guidance” would exclude the Martinez refinery given the uncertainty about the length of the shutdown and cost of repairs. PBF operates five other refineries across the United States.

Scales-Preston to be appointed to ISO committee: Scales-Preston is set to be appointed to the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors’ Industrial Safety Ordinance/Community Warning System Ad Hoc Committee on Tuesday, replacing Candace Andersen, according to the board agenda. Mayor Zorn and community activists requested the appointment of Scales-Preston to the committee following the Feb. 1 refinery fire. The committee plays a key role in regulating the county’s petroleum refineries and guiding the operation of the Community Warning System during hazardous materials releases.

Refinery process units remain shut down: Howard updated the council on the status of the refinery based on a Feb. 10 meeting he attended with county health officials. He said the state Department of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) remains in control of the area where the fire took place as it continues to investigate. The refinery’s process units remain shut down, and over 200 pipes need to be isolated and repaired.

Free air purifiers: The community groups Health Martinez and 350 Bay Area will be handing out free air purifiers from 12:30 to 5 p.m. on Saturday at 600 Palm Ave. (while supplies last). Limit one per household.

Clarification of AEMS from past post: My Feb. 13 post titled “From 'Decisive Victory' to Disaster: The Topsy-Turvy Year that Culminated in Massive Feb. 1 Refinery Fire at MRC” made several references to Martinez Refining Co.’s Alternative Emission Monitoring System (AEMS), which was a key component of the refinery’s lawsuit settlement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) over the Air District’s new rule requiring significant reductions in particulate emissions. Some references to AEMS in the article implied that AEMS is the mechanism by which MRC plans to reduce its emissions. The AEMS is the means by which the refinery plans to show compliance with the requirements of the the rule through the continuous monitoring of its particulate emissions. The mechanism by which MRC would reduce its emissions was not disclosed by MRC or the Air District when the lawsuit settlement was announced in February 2024, despite the fact that, unlike Chevron’s Richmond refinery, it was made clear that MRC would not be installing a wet gas scrubber — which, until that point, was widely assumed to be the only available technology capable of meeting the stringent requirements of Rule 6:5, and which had been the subject of extensive discussion in BAAQMD’s staff report leading up to passage of the rule in 2021 and court filings related to the lawsuit. The actual technical solutions that PBF/MRC plans to employ to reduce its particulate emissions to levels required under the rule, which were discussed in the post, did not come to light until April, when refinery Manager Daniel Ingram explained them at a Martinez City Council meeting in response to questions from council members. I’ve modified wording in the Feb. 13 post to clarify the nature of the AEMS and what it is designed to do.

City to wind down Outdoor Dining and Retail Program

Agreeing that the program had run its course, the City Council on Wednesday directed staff to wind down the Outdoor Dining and Retail Program that was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, and transition participating businesses to the city’s Special Events Program for assigning street closures.

Assistant City Manager Lauren Sugayan explained to the council that participation in the outdoor program that has closed streets on weekends had dwindled, with nearly half of businesses surveying saying it was having a neutral impact on their operations.

There is no longer an anchor for the program as existed during the pandemic, when indoor activities were limited, Sugayan explained, and “it’s very difficult to create one program that serves all these different needs.”

The council concurred, also noting safety concerns from the regular street closures. As part of transitioning street closures for commercial activities to the city’s special events program, the city plans to revise the policy to determine a criteria for granting street closure requests, which could include such factors as whether the events will foster community pride and culture and create economic vitality.

City to spend $500,000 on fire hydrant testing

At its Feb. 5 meeting, the City Council authorized $500,000 from its Water Enterprise funds to contract out fire hydrant and valve maintenance and testing. The need to ensure the reliability of the city’s fire hydrants became more pressing after the Southern California wildfires, and City Manager Michael Chandler explained to the council in January that the city lacked sufficient resources to adequately carry out the work in-house. The Contra Costa Fire Protection District once assisted the city in testing and maintaining fire hydrants but stopped providing that service more than a decade ago amid staffing cuts.

Firefighters struggled to knock down a 2023 fire in the Muir Oaks neighborhood because of fire hydrant problems stemming from a broken valve at a water main. “The broken valve which severely restricted flow would have been discovered during routine testing,” Chandler said in a staff report on the budget request.

Street paving update

The council approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-26 Measure D Five-Year Pavement Preservation Program. The street work is funded through the Measure D sales tax approved by voters in 2016. Since the program started, the city’s overall Pavement Condition Index has improved from “poor” to “fair.” The city has resurfaced 64 centerline miles out of 123 total centerline miles, or 52.5% of its pavement network. The proposed street paving list for 2025-26 can be found at the following link: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/3146401/Attachment_E_Proposed_Street_List_FY_2025-26_to_FY2029-30.pdf