The Sierra Club and 15 other environmental, environmental justice, and social justice groups have sent a letter to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) urging immediate action on long-promised regulations to protect local communities from deadly particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions from Bay Area oil refineries.
Each of these protections (see Table 1 below) was initially identified by BAAQMD for implementation between two and four years ago. At the time the protections were identified, BAAQMD staff found the measures to be capable of significantly cutting refinery emissions through retrofit and/or operational measures which were demonstrated in practice.
These health protections are needed urgently by people who are exposed to disparately severe oil industry pollution in low-income communities of color near refineries. We are concerned that BAAQMD has engaged in no public rule development activity for any of these protections in 2019 to date. Worse, in its May 30, 2019 Refinery Rules Technical Working Group meeting, BAAQMD proposed a schedule that could delay work on these protections beyond 2019. We urge BAAQMD to urgently publish a schedule specifying a timeline for developing and implementing these public emission control measures.
Particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) is the leading cause of deaths due to air pollution. BAAQMD estimates that up to 3,000 people in the Bay Area — of whom a disproportionate number are poor and people of color — die from particulate matter exposure each year.
The primary industrial sources of PM2.5 emissions under BAAQMD jurisdiction are the five oil refineries in the East Bay. Within the refineries, facilities for “cracking” heavy crudes into useable fuels are the primary emission sources. There are proven solutions to drastically reduce PM 2.5 emissions from these units and significantly improve public health outcomes in the Bay Area — but these solutions have now been delayed for years.
Right now, proven protections for Bay Area communities appear to be deferred indefinitely. There is simply no good excuse for preventable pollution.
Photo: Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo, by Thomas Hawk via Flickr Creative Commons.