News

Jan 19, 2024

Bay Area residents can eat garden produce despite toxic refinery dust

In November, the Martinez Refinery released a mixture of aluminum, silica,

In November, the Martinez Refinery released a mixture of aluminum, silica, nickel and other products used when refining crude oil from its stacks for hours — and perhaps as long as a day.

Contra Costa County health authorities Thursday lifted a ban on eating food from backyard gardens after soil tests allayed fears that dust with heavy metals spewed from a Martinez oil refinery had poisoned the ground.

Toxicologists tested soil samples taken across about a dozen miles and centered in Martinez, a city in the backyard of a major oil refinery, PBF Energy's Martinez Refining Co., which processes 157,000 barrels of crude oil each day. Scientists analyzed levels of a variety of heavy metals, such as chromium, barium and nickel, to determine if there were any long-term health risks from the dust that coated the ground the day after Thanksgiving.

Those substances were within safe levels expected for soil in the region, they found.

County Health Officer Ori Tzvieli said that while the refinery material, called spent catalyst, may not have impacted the soil, the findings confirm "that the primary health risk from the spent catalyst release occurred in the initial hours and days after the refinery release," he said.

Separate ongoing investigations, including one by the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office and a federal case led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, are examining the problems that led the refinery stacks to spray this material into the air as well as the company's failure to alert the public when they were possibly breathing it in.

The soil test findings were presented to an oversight committee the county formed in the wake of the emissions problem amid heated public criticism from residents angered that they were not warned until days after the accident.

Committee member Tony Semenza told county officials he was frustrated that it took months after they were subjected to clouds of refinery material for the county to provide scientific data on health risks.

"One hundred and ninety four days after the release. We are now at the point where we’re telling people it's okay to eat the fresh fruits and vegetables," Semenza said. "The process is flawed. This should have been done much quicker."

Another speaker, a Martinez resident identified only by her first name, Beth, said she still wants clearer answers about the health impacts for those who inhaled the dust during its initial release. "The long-term effects of that initial exposure is what I’d like to have addressed," she said.

Tzvieli said during a press briefing after Thursday's meeting that it was challenging to provide definitive information to residents about potential acute and long-term impacts from breathing the material during those initial hours when it was being spewed into the air. The county's hazardous materials department would typically send staff out to take air quality measurements, but the emissions had stopped by the time they were informed.

"We didn't know," he said.

On November 25, Martinez residents woke up to find a mysterious white dust coating car windshields, patio furniture and other outdoor surfaces at homes and public places, including schools. Malfunctioning systems at the refinery led operators to shut down pollution controls, which sent between 20 and 24 tons of a material called spent catalyst out of the stacks.

Brandon Matson, Martinez Refining Co. spokesman, said in an email after Thursday's meeting that the company has taken corrective actions to address the problems that caused the material to be released and also those that slowed communication. The company would also like to "apologize to the Martinez community again for the release and the concerns this has caused," he said.

Matson said the company was "pleased" about the soil test results and said they were "in line with our initial statements about the material," which described it as non-toxic and non-hazardous.

County health officials have refuted the company's claims spent catalyst is not toxic. "We believe it to be hazardous," said Matthew Kaufmann, Contra Costa County's deputy health director.

"While this does bring some relief in terms of long term health impacts to our community, the lack of timely notification negated our ability as health officials to protect our community, including those most vulnerable," Kaufmann said.

The soil test results don't provide detail about the risks people faced last Thanksgiving when they may have inhaled the dust, which tests have already revealed contained aluminum, silica, nickel, vanadium, chromium and zinc, among other substances. Inhaling the powdery dust, county health officials said, could cause respiratory problems.

Six months ago, Martinez residents woke up the Friday after Thanksgiving to find a thin layer of dust akin to wildfire ash coating car windshields, patio furniture and other outdoor surfaces.

"These results do not excuse the Martinez Refining Company for the lack of communication at the onset of this incident," Kaufmann said.

Toxicologists tested the soil for a variety of metals, including nickel, chromium, lead and vanadium. They found no levels beyond what might be expected for the region, according to Jenny Phillips, a senior tech advisor for risk assessment and toxicologist with TRC, an environmental firm hired by the county to analyze the soil. They found slightly elevated levels of arsenic and lead in some of the samples, but not enough to pose health risks, she said.

Six months ago, the Martinez Refining Company had been experiencing problems at its facility for days, resulting in flaring and causing workers to shut down parts of its systems. The company has said its employees neglected to restart pollution control systems designed to prevent the material called spent catalyst from being spewed into the air.

As a result, a mixture of alumina silicate and other products used when refining crude oil into products like jet fuel and diesel sailed out of the stacks without any controls for hours — and perhaps as long as a day — before the problem was detected.

Residents, meanwhile, were puzzled by this dust. Martinez resident Rochelle Ramos said she noticed ash on the plants outside and her car at home, about 1 mile from the refinery. She shrugged it off and figured she would have been alerted by the refinery or the county if the material was hazardous.

Contra Costa County health experts are expected to share information on whether toxic dust spewed from the Martinez refinery last year remains a risk in soil.

In another Martinez neighborhood, Wendy Ke was packing the car for a family trip to Lake Tahoe when she noticed it was covered in white dust. Her husband hosed it down and they left town. But Ke had a nagging feeling the dust had come from the refinery, and eventually contacted the local air pollution regulators involved in refinery oversight.

"I had a sense that if something came out of there, we should be concerned: Was it safe to touch?" Ke said.

Indeed, people should have been alerted immediately so they could avoid breathing it in or tracking it into their homes, said Neil Carman, clean air program director with the Sierra Club's Lone Star chapter in Texas, where a similar upset involving spent catalyst occurred in 2015.

"This is a big issue," Carman said. "If people have babies and young infants who like to play outside and get their hands dirty and stick them in their mouth, that would be a major concern."

But residents received no solid information for about a week.

That Saturday after Thanksgiving, the refinery began offering free car washes and, in social media posts, said the dust contained naturally occurring materials that "are considered non-toxic and non-hazardous." Company officials said the material was easily rinsed off plants and other surfaces.

"There are no health risks associated with this material," the company said in a Nov. 26 Facebook post. The company didn't alert regulatory agencies or the county health department.

But residents’ questions about the dust reached the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Contra Costa County hazardous materials department, and staffers from both agencies took swipe samples that Saturday and contacted the refinery.

Results from those initial swab tests from windshields detected "trace" amounts of heavy metals. Kaufmann said the county urged the refinery to stop calling the material nontoxic.

Contra Costa health officials on Nov. 30 told the public the dust may have caused short-term respiratory problems for sensitive groups but otherwise posed no immediate health risks.

Martinez Refining officials estimated the facility spewed between 20 and 24 tons into the air.

That's about one month's worth of typical particulate pollution churned out in less than a day, according to Greg Nudd, deputy executive officer of science and policy with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. But the spent catalyst carried more concerning ingredients, he said.

The cautionary messages grew over the next several months, a progression that heightened concern among residents that they were still in the dark about both acute and lingering health risks from the industrial material they likely breathed in.

In December, health officials urged people to wear N95 respirators when cleaning the dust off surfaces. Then in January, they warned people against eating food from their gardens because the powder contained elevated levels of heavy metals.

And in March, county health officials advised against eating produce grown in soil.

"I want to know what happened and why it happened," said Heidi Taylor, who helped form the group Healthy Martinez to push for more accountability in the dust upset's aftermath, in an interview last month. "We should be getting alerts for all of it."

Kaufmann said the refinery had not only failed to notify the county or air regulators but the company also misled the public by claiming the material was not toxic. The county has asked the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office to prosecute PBF Energy, which runs the refinery as well as five others in the U.S., for allegedly violating local public notification laws. A spokesman for the office said they are still reviewing the case and have filed no charges.

The air district issued 21 violations to Martinez Refining for activities leading up to the upset and its aftermath.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, assisted by the FBI, are also investigating the incident under the Clean Air Act.

Kaufmann said that while the results "bring some relief in terms of long term health impacts to our community, the lack of timely notification negated our ability as health officials to protect our community, including those most vulnerable."

Martinez Refining representatives have so far declined interview requests from The Chronicle.

A subsidiary of PBF Energy, PBF Holding Co., purchased the facility in 2020 from Shell Oil Products, which had operated the Martinez facility for about a century.

Reach Julie Johnson: [email protected]; Twitter: @juliejohnson