California Bay Area refiners face heightened regulations

California’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), the public agency responsible for regulating stationary sources of air pollution in the nine counties that surround San Francisco Bay, has launched an aggressive plan to cut emissions from the region’s five refineries.

By unanimous vote on Oct. 15, BAAQMD’s board passed a resolution that commits the agency to completing a series of actions over the next several months to further a newly announced goal of reducing local refinery emissions by 20%, or “as much as feasible,” by 2020, BAAQMD said.

Specifically, the recently adopted resolution directs BAAQMD staff to expedite implementation of the agency’s proposed Petroleum Refining Emissions Tracking (PRET) rule, which outlines a variety of additional administrative, monitoring, and recordkeeping requirements for area refiners.

The resolution also calls for staff to create a “companion rule” to PRET that would set emissions thresholds for each refinery to be used as a measure, or baseline, for mitigating any potential future emissions increases.

Staff evaluations of emissions-reducing approaches as well as a recommended strategy for meeting the 20% reduction target are due to the board by December, while the finalized PRET and companion mitigation rules are to be presented by spring 2015, according to the resolution.

BAAQMD said it plans to have a final set of rules in place to meet the new emissions reduction goal by yearend 2015.

Industry reactions

While Bay Area refiners expected the agency to formalize a proposal for further emissions cuts, BAAQMD’s intentions to move forward with certain elements of PRET as well as a companion rule that would set refinery-specific emissions thresholds do raise concerns for operators in the region, according to the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA).

“The 20% reduction level really just expedites the Bay Area’s 2015 Clean Air Plan [currently being prepared by BAAQMD] to reduce emissions from all sources,” Guy Bjerke, WSPA’s Bay Area region manager, told OGJ.

“It’s the costlier components of the tracking rule and the new companion rule that pose greater issues for area refiners because, together, they threaten the operational flexibility of the refineries,” said Bjerke, who has been collaborating with BAAQMD in PRET’s development since the rule first was proposed in early 2013.

According to the latest draft version of PRET, dated July 17, refiners would be required to:

• Provide a detailed and comprehensive health risk assessment of hazardous substances and regulated air pollutants dispersed into the surrounding areas.

• Compile and submit an annual inventory of emissions from their operations.

• Report, on an annual basis, certain composition characteristics of crude oils they process.

• Install, operate, and maintain fence-line and community air monitoring systems.

Much of what BAAQMD proposes with PRET replicates requirements that Bay Area refiners already face under other state and national regulations, while the companion rule raises legal issues related to current operating permits legally granted to the refineries following thorough New Source Review and Prevention of Significant Deterioration permitting practices as delegated to BAAQMD by the US Environmental Protection Agency, WSPA said.

“The companion rule is more or less another version of the baseline rule, which was removed in April from [PRET] due to a series of legal challenges under California law,” Bjerke said.

While the board’s latest resolution effectively establishes BAAQMD’s plan for another baseline rule separated out from PRET, the legal challenges against such a rule remain the same, Bjerke said.

Without yet having the actual language of BAAQMD staff’s revised tracking and proposed companion rule, however, WSPA remains hopeful ongoing collaboration with all parties involved will lead to a sound and sensible emissions-reductions strategy.

“No one opposes working to reduce emissions, but we need to find a way to do it that doesn’t undermine or derate the validity and legality of operating permits the refineries already hold,” Bjerke said.

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].