New particulars emerged this week concerning the large February fireplace that erupted on the Martinez Refinery Firm and launched greater than 7,000 gallons of hydrocarbon supplies into the air, as officers revealed that oil crews had been utilizing incompatible radio programs that prevented fast contact with native public security businesses.
Whereas county firefighters arrived on the scene 14 minutes after being notified of a fireplace at MRC, crews had been stalled exterior, unable to contact the refinery operators on website – a communication hole that delayed the institution of a unified command middle by practically two hours.
Inside breakdowns like these add to the power terror neighbors and companies face downwind of the refinery, mentioned Heidi Taylor, who lives alongside its fence line in downtown Martinez. She mentioned she’s seen level-one alerts and “enormous” flaring nearly daily for the previous month, which was confirmed by Contra Costa County officers.
“It’s the public that suffers as a result of MRC’s incompetence, or what I would argue is gross negligence,” Taylor mentioned Tuesday at a Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors assembly.
As an alternative of switching channels on one machine, MRC workers have to hold two radios in an effort to talk with the Contra Costa County Fireplace Safety District and dozens of different businesses tuned to the East Bay Regional Interoperable Communications System’s frequencies, in line with ConFire Deputy Chief Aaron McAlister. It’s not unusual for disaster groups to juggle completely different gadgets, which McAlister mentioned is continuously the case when ConFire navigates wildland environments with CalFire brigades or interacts with cops in Richmond.
However MRC solely has a couple of of those radios, generally known as EBRICS, and nobody on the refinery’s inner fireplace brigade had entry to these gadgets – the one radios tuned to supply a line of communication to ConFire’s items throughout these kinds of emergencies.
“There’s an entire (petrochemical mutual aid organization) bank of frequencies, and (refinery crews) can use those frequencies without causing (county responders) any issue in our day-to-day operations,” McAlister advised the board Tuesday. Whereas presenting the county’s overview of the actions taken by emergency responders in February, a typical follow after high-profile incidents, McAlister mentioned MRC must get accustomed to utilizing the EBRICS in an effort to be ready for the following emergency.
“They need to practice some radio discipline.”
Dominic Aliano, a spokesperson for MRC, didn’t instantly reply when requested how the corporate would guarantee points with the radios is not going to influence future emergencies on the refinery.
Taylor, a founding member of the Wholesome Martinez Refinery Accountability Group, mentioned she was impressed with ConFire’s proposed checklist of corrections and “lessons learned.” She remained annoyed, nevertheless, by the failure to higher anticipate potential hazards of the petrochemical merchandise flowing by means of the 157,000 barrel-per-day facility’s “trees of valves and pipes,” one of the crucial complicated within the U.S. She’s but to see any fence-line information recorded throughout the February flaring by high-tech sensors that the refinery, which has been owned by PBF Vitality Inc. since its $1 billion acquisition from Shell in 2020, put in a couple of years prior to observe particular emissions in “real time.”
“We are checking all sources – we need more information, not less,” Taylor mentioned. “We must be vigilant and demand better of MRC and continue updating systems to better protect us.”
McAlister mentioned that requires a easy repair: inner and cross-agency coaching that includes radio communication into day by day routines.
County workers ranked the remainder of the problems into “buckets” of excessive, medium and low precedence, which ConFire will deal with over the following 12 to 24 months. Rating highest was the necessity to develop clear, environment friendly plans to deploy joint response groups to a variety of various emergencies, which can not require the identical assets. McAlister additionally highlighted plans for interagency coaching workout routines, together with predesignated radio frequencies and different methods to speak with the refinery.
Not like the Chevron plant additional down the coast in Richmond, the MRC facility doesn’t make use of an expert full-time fireplace division, McAlister mentioned. As an alternative, they cross-train refinery workers as firefighters, which is analogous to operations on the Phillips 66 facility in Rodeo.
Contra Costa’s second-highest fireplace official didn’t gloss over challenges after MRC additionally took a lead function in speaking with the general public concerning the flaring and subsequent explosion at their Martinez facility. The disaster broken inner tools and shut down refining for a number of months.
“I think in hindsight, when we look at this incident, the public wants to hear from the public safety agencies that public safety is being mitigated,” McAlister mentioned. “Perhaps, in hindsight again, having such a large presence from the corporation may not have been in our favor.”
Supervisor Ken Carlson, who serves on the board overseeing deployment of EBRICS radios in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, emphasised how quite a few points stemmed from a scarcity of cohesiveness between authorities companions.
“That was one of my personal pet peeves,” Carlson mentioned Tuesday. “The public is relying on us. Granted, we never get it to them fast enough – they’re always going to want to be in the know – but we want to be one up on social media and speculation by the public who are just going on perhaps observations or other theories. I understand MRC is a separate entity and their (spokesperson) can ultimately do what they want to do as far as putting information out, but … what I think the public is looking for, is making sure that that information is accurate across our partners.”
