Martinez, the Contra Costa County seat, has been a refinery town for more than a century. But the fragile peace between industry and neighborhoods cracked one year ago Thanksgiving night when PBF Energy’s Martinez Refining Company facility spewed chemical dust onto neighborhoods, coating cars, patio furniture, gardens and sidewalks. It looked like wildfire ash.
The refinery didn’t alert the health department, air quality regulators or the public about the emissions problems. So residents wiped it off and swept it away over the next day — puzzling over its origins — when masks, gloves and other precautions could have kept this industrial material out of their mouths and lungs.
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Asked this week about the string of problems over the past year, a spokesman for PBF Energy provided a statement from the company promising “to investigate and learn from these incidents and implement appropriate corrective actions.”
“We recognize we must earn the right to operate in the Martinez community and apologize to the Martinez community for falling short of that (in) the past 12 months,” the company said.
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Both PBF Energy and Chevron are fighting the new pollution standards, which the air quality district estimates could slash pollution by 70% at the Martinez refinery. The two companies have lodged separate lawsuits against the agency to prevent its implementation once it was passed. PBF argued the rule would cost the company $800 million and force the refinery to close, putting 600 full-time employees out of work. The lawsuit is still playing out, with the parties returning to court Dec. 21.
