Refinery Town Hall: County to Pursue 'Full-Facility Audit' of MRC; Residents Lash Out in Frustration Over Repeated Incidents

"You can be sure I'm working to hold PBF accountable," county supervisor tells audience; also, final report on 2023 Marathon refinery fire; City Council to discuss budget challenges

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By Sam Richards

Contra Costa County officials said Thursday they will commission a “full-facility audit” of PBF Energy’s Martinez Refining Co. after a disastrous Feb. 1 explosion and fire, and the refinery’s manager noted that his company is doing its own “root cause analysis investigation” into why that happened.

But for many of the 175 or so people who came to a Town Hall meeting at John Muir Elementary School to discuss this latest safety crisis at the century-plus-old refinery, such promises offered little reassurance that there won’t be more problems further down the pipeline.

Justin Gomez, a member of the community group Healthy Martinez, said Martinez residents are exhausted with the toxic releases, with the flaring, and with the public meetings called to hash out the various problems. A similar Town Hall meeting about problems at MRC, hosted by U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, took place in this same room a year earlier.

“We’re exhausted – we’re traumatized, and we’ve normalized it,” said Gomez, one of a dozen or so people who lashed out at refinery and public officials at this Town Hall meeting, hosted by Contra County Supervisor Shanelle Scales-Preston. “This community needs hope, for too many reasons.”

Most of the 18 people who asked questions during a 45-minute Q&A session said they don’t trust MRC and its owner, PBF Energy Inc., to get the situation at the refinery under control, and that neither county government nor regulatory agencies have sufficiently held MRC’s feet to the fire. Most of the time, it was MRC Refinery Manager Daniel Ingram who was feeling the heat the most.

Jillian Elliott of Martinez asked specifically how she and her neighbors can believe anything the MRC officials tell them.

“What will it take for you to treat us like adults?” Elliott said. “I don’t really trust what you have to say.”

Martinez resident Jillian Elliott speaks during the town hall.

Scales-Preston, too, said she needs to be shown that MRC can operate a safe refinery. But she took some heat from audience members who claimed politicians haven’t held refinery officials sufficiently responsible.

“You can be sure I’m working to hold PBF accountable,” said Scales-Preston, who took office in January. She stressed that her 2024 election campaign took no money from PBF. “We have to develop trust because there’s no trust there.”

County Supervisor Shanelle Scales-Preston speaks during the Town Hall.