The Martinez Refining Company has agreed to pay $4.48 million to settle allegations of federal Clean Water Act violations tied to its Contra Costa County refinery, and the money will go to environmental projects, according to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Owned by PBF Energy Inc., the refinery produces a variety of petroleum products.
Between 2022 and 2023, the company allegedly discharged millions of gallons of wastewater from its oil refinery operations, causing harm to water quality and aquatic life in the large undeveloped marshes connected to the Carquinez Strait.
The penalty was calculated by the State Water Resources Control Board and issued in October. In a statement released Monday, the agency said that half of the amount, or $2,241,000, will go to the State Water Board’s Cleanup and Abatement Account, which supports pollution cleanup projects throughout California. The remaining half will be allocated to different environmental projects benefiting San Francisco Bay.
One of the environmental projects will go to improve water circulation and water quality within marshes adjacent to Carquinez Strait, where many of the violations occurred. This area includes the Peyton Channel and McNabney Marsh.
There were three major cases of unauthorized discharges.
Over 72,000 gallons were released into a marsh adjacent to the refinery and the Carquinez Strait on Oct. 27, 2022, due to a blocked pipeline.
On Jan. 4, 2023, a severe rainstorm overwhelmed the refinery’s retention and waste management capacity, and another 11.2 million gallons of partially treated refinery wastewater mixed with stormwater in a nearby marsh.
On June 7, 2023, a broken process water pipe caused the release of more than 471,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater into a retention area connected to McNabney Marsh.
Additionally, from Jan. 1, 2023, through July 25, 2023, the refinery discharged approximately 477 million gallons of wastewater from a permitted discharge point, exceeding the pollutant limits specified in its Clean Water Act permit.
According to the control board statement, these discharges contained harmful pollutants, including bacteria, metals, cyanide, oil, grease, and suspended solids, with levels of chemicals surpassing acceptable standards of toxicity.
Another initiative that will be funded by the settlement is the Martinez Watershed Rangers Program, which organizes watershed stewardship and trash cleanup efforts with local schools.
Additional funds will go to fund four important studies.
One involves analyzing the San Francisco Bay for polychlorinated biphenyls. PCBs are an industrial chemical associated with some cancers. Banned in 1979, PCBs do not readily break down once in the environment. They can remain for long periods cycling between air, water and soil.
Two of the other studies look at and model how sediment changes between mudflats in a North Bay salt marsh and in the San Pablo and Suisun Bays. The fourth study will measure microplastics in sport fish to determine exposure levels in the food web.
In a statement from the Martinez Refining Company, MRC spokesperson Brandon Matson said the settlement agreement addresses all alleged violations. He suggested that some of what happened might have been due to extraordinary storms.
“MRC believes that the discharges alleged in the order were subject to applicable defenses under the Clean Water Act or were caused by circumstances unknown to and/or beyond MRC’s reasonable control, including the occurrence of an unexpectedly large series of storm events,” he said.
“Nevertheless, MRC agreed to settle the alleged violations without administrative or civil adjudication. MRC remains committed to operating the Martinez Refinery in a safe, reliable, and environmentally responsible manner,” he said.
Being unprepared for unusual weather events was one of the violations of the settlement. The company was more than a year late in submitting a required Climate Change Adaptation report, which was needed to evaluate the refinery’s vulnerabilities to sea level rise, groundwater rise, severe weather events, and other climate-related impacts.
“This significant enforcement action sends a message that businesses need to proactively prevent unauthorized discharges and improve responses to increasingly severe weather,” said Regional Water Board chair Alexis Strauss Hacker in the statement. “This refinery, like all large-scale industrial operations, needs to anticipate how our climate is changing and better prepare for intense storms.”
Other Environmental Stories:
Sunnyvale Cafe Bambu Works to Reduce Plastics that go into Landfills
California Sues ExxonMobil Over Plastics Pollution
Sunnyvale to Study State of its Grass Fields
Car Dealer DGDG Fined for Alleged Environmental, Record Keeping Offenses