County probe will look at cause of spent catalyst release but not failure to inform community; city moves forward with creating its own warning system; a commentary by Craig Lazzeretti
Craig, in a far better world than the one we currently live in you'd be receiving a Pulitzer for your critical reporting on this mess. Many thanks for this brilliant work!
In your next blog, perhaps you could exfoliate MRC's demand for a non-disclosure agreement before it releases certain information to Scott Berger: "Meanwhile, another consultant hired by CCH, Scott Berger and Associates, was, as of last week, waiting for the green light to study the causes and circumstances of the incident itself, pending the signing of a non-disclosure agreement with the refinery related to confidential business information and trade secrets." Ah, the refineries and their "proprietary" information. It's been over six months since the toxic release, and now this predictable end run by MRC to delay even further the commencement of an independent root cause analysis—a move straight out of the venerable oil industry playbook. Who saw this coming? 🙄
I didn't offer any commentary on that as I was more fixated on the CWS issues, but I agree with your sentiments. Although I wonder if there could be a silver lining with this holdup if the DA ever gets around to making up its mind about filing charges against MRC over the CWS failure (it's been six months and counting since the mattered was referred to them; of course this is the same agency that took 2 1/2 years to investigate convicted cop Andrew Hall, giving him the opportunity to kill again). If the DA makes up its mind, that would take away CC Health's rationale for excluding the CWS from the independent investigation (though I wouldn't be surprised if they found a new, equally lame one).
In my mind, there have been three distinct elements of this incident in the following order of importance:
1) The failure to activate the CWS for the first time ever in a major refinery accident (which the news media basically ignored)
2) The exact cause and and immediate impact of the release on people who breathed in the dust (which the news media basically ignored)
3) The long-term impact on gardens and produce (which the news media latched onto like Hillary's emails and totally blew out of proportion, thanks in large part to CC Health's alarmist advisory that it waited more than 3 months to send out).
Damn good reporting! So really, it’s come down to Martinez residents filing a class action against MRC and CCH, in my opinion. How do we convince the County Grand Jury to take this on and investigate and how long will that take? I call bullshit on the Health Dept.!
Any citizen can request the civil grand jury to investigate a topic or agency of concern. A new grand jury is recruited every year. I hope our elected leaders in Martinez directly ask the grand jury to investigate this on our behalf.
Here is the link to the grand jury website that lists all the information about how the grand jury operates and the most recent reports it has filed (including its investigation into why the DA took over 2 years to file charges against a cop who was later convicted in an unjustified fatal shooting, after he fatally shot a second person because he got to remain on duty during the first investigation).
Craig et al. Thanks for always “fighting the good fight”!
Craig, in a far better world than the one we currently live in you'd be receiving a Pulitzer for your critical reporting on this mess. Many thanks for this brilliant work!
In your next blog, perhaps you could exfoliate MRC's demand for a non-disclosure agreement before it releases certain information to Scott Berger: "Meanwhile, another consultant hired by CCH, Scott Berger and Associates, was, as of last week, waiting for the green light to study the causes and circumstances of the incident itself, pending the signing of a non-disclosure agreement with the refinery related to confidential business information and trade secrets." Ah, the refineries and their "proprietary" information. It's been over six months since the toxic release, and now this predictable end run by MRC to delay even further the commencement of an independent root cause analysis—a move straight out of the venerable oil industry playbook. Who saw this coming? 🙄
Thanks for the kind words, Shoshana!
Not sure if you saw the post I put out last week on the confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement? https://open.substack.com/pub/martineznewsandviews/p/martinez-refinery-investigation-stalled?r=tm6pf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I didn't offer any commentary on that as I was more fixated on the CWS issues, but I agree with your sentiments. Although I wonder if there could be a silver lining with this holdup if the DA ever gets around to making up its mind about filing charges against MRC over the CWS failure (it's been six months and counting since the mattered was referred to them; of course this is the same agency that took 2 1/2 years to investigate convicted cop Andrew Hall, giving him the opportunity to kill again). If the DA makes up its mind, that would take away CC Health's rationale for excluding the CWS from the independent investigation (though I wouldn't be surprised if they found a new, equally lame one).
In my mind, there have been three distinct elements of this incident in the following order of importance:
1) The failure to activate the CWS for the first time ever in a major refinery accident (which the news media basically ignored)
2) The exact cause and and immediate impact of the release on people who breathed in the dust (which the news media basically ignored)
3) The long-term impact on gardens and produce (which the news media latched onto like Hillary's emails and totally blew out of proportion, thanks in large part to CC Health's alarmist advisory that it waited more than 3 months to send out).
In answer to your question, yes, I saw the last very good post on MRC's intransigence. Shame on the County for not pushing back.
Damn good reporting! So really, it’s come down to Martinez residents filing a class action against MRC and CCH, in my opinion. How do we convince the County Grand Jury to take this on and investigate and how long will that take? I call bullshit on the Health Dept.!
Any citizen can request the civil grand jury to investigate a topic or agency of concern. A new grand jury is recruited every year. I hope our elected leaders in Martinez directly ask the grand jury to investigate this on our behalf.
Here is the link to the grand jury website that lists all the information about how the grand jury operates and the most recent reports it has filed (including its investigation into why the DA took over 2 years to file charges against a cop who was later convicted in an unjustified fatal shooting, after he fatally shot a second person because he got to remain on duty during the first investigation).
https://www.cc-courts.org/civil/grand-jury.aspx
I hope they ask also and guess we will have to cajole them in doing it.