About 300 staff have returned to Martinez Refining Firm after a leak ignited an explosion and subsequent fireplace Saturday afternoon, resulting in a shelter-in-place order for neighboring communities.
As Contra Costa County Fireplace and Martinez Refining Firm investigators sift by way of the harm, refinery staff have returned to their posts in an try to forestall additional incidents, following quite a few well being advisories from Contra Costa Well being Providers division in latest days.
Workers have been pressured to evacuate Saturday afternoon when an explosion shot flames lots of of ft into the air. 4 refinery staff obtained minor accidents through the incident and have been transported to native hospitals, in keeping with Martinez Refining Firm Public Info Officer Brandon Matson.
Billowing, jet-black smoke over residential neighborhoods in Martinez, Pacheco and Clyde led to a shelter-in-place order Saturday night from the Contra Costa Well being Providers division. The division lifted the shelter-in-place order round 9 p.m. Saturday evening, however maintained a Stage 2 public well being advisory calling for delicate populations to remain indoors.
The fireplace was largely put out by 11 a.m. on Sunday, permitting refinery personnel to return to work in a restricted capability at designated secure areas of the refinery. Plurkowski mentioned staff have been within the refinery since evacuations have been lifted and are doing every thing of their energy to maintain the affected communities and the refinery secure.
“It’s an oversimplification when I say this, but we’re scrambling around and seeing what we can do that’s still safe to do,” Plurkowski mentioned. “The whole refinery is intertwined, and all the units affect the other units, so there’s stuff still going on.”
Gasoline costs ticked up barely Monday, however one skilled predicted a extra vital spike as a result of potential lack of the Martinez facility’s operations, which characterize some 10 % of the state’s refining capability.
Martinez Refining Firm can be required to launch a Root Trigger Evaluation to establish how the incident occurred. Moreover, the refinery can be ordered to create and implement mitigation methods to forestall future incidents, in keeping with CCH.
Saturday’s incident provides a brand new chapter to the historical past of incidents at Martinez Refining Firm prior to now 5 years the place hazardous supplies have been launched to the general public. On Nov. 24 and 25, 2022, the refinery by accident launched a powdery substance generally known as a “spent catalyst” that contained larger ranges of heavy metals than regular. The Contra Costa County district legal professional pursued authorized motion in opposition to Martinez Refining Firm on the time for not notifying County well being officers when the accident occurred.
On July 11, 2023, the refinery unintentionally launched petroleum coke mud, a byproduct of refining crude oil, for about one minute. The investigation that adopted didn’t discover soil contamination within the affected communities.
Neither of the incidents resulted in accidents.
Different refineries within the space have been tormented by issues, as effectively, together with intermittent flaring reported Sunday on the Chevron Refinery in Richmond. In 2024, the Bay Space Air High quality Administration District introduced a $5 million penalty in opposition to Marathon Martinez Refinery for 59 air-quality violations from 2018 to 2022 — the second-largest advantageous the company had ever assessed.
The repeated public well being incidents at Martinez Refining Firm and different refineries within the East Bay have exhausted the persistence of many native residents, together with a Martinez lady who requested to be recognized as a “quite irritated resident.”
“By now, we’ve gotten used to this,” she mentioned.
Initially Revealed: February 3, 2025 at 4:49 PM PST
