1 Year After Fire, Officials Monitor Chevron Refinery Emissions
RICHMOND (KCBS) — One year after a massive fire broke out at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, Bay Area air officials are continuing their efforts to better monitor refinery emissions.
In direct response to the fire on August 6th, 2012, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District installed a new continuous emissions monitor in San Pablo, two miles from the refinery.
"We did have particulate measurements going on in San Pablo, they were just not continuous measurements, so what we did is we installed instrumentation that would provide hourly averages of fine particulate matter," said Eric Stevenson, director of technical services for the district.
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Continuous monitors have already been installed at other locations in the Bay Area.
The district is also developing a new rule that would track emissions from Bay Area refineries and require them to reduce those emissions, should they go up.
"We expect to be able to bring this rule to our board of directors for their consideration within the first half of 2014," said Brian Bateman, the district's health and science officer.
Bay Area environmentalists said they have been pushing the district to create this kind of rule for the past 20 years.
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