Tesoro Mistakenly Issued Test Alert During Martinez Refinery Problem

The Tesoro refinery in Martinez mistakenly issued a test alert to the surrounding community in the middle of a real emergency last Tuesday that caused flaring and sent a large plume of black smoke into the air.

A major part of the refinery, which can process 166,000 barrels of crude oil a day, malfunctioned and halted operations at several of the facility's units. The problem eventually led to a real Level Two community warning, advising nearby residents with respiratory problems to stay indoors because of the smoke drifting from Tesoro's property.

While no one was injured and no one reported becoming ill from the smoke, the company's delay in sending out the actual alert has led a top East Bay health official to call on Tesoro to better train its employees during emergencies.

"They hit the wrong one, the one for test instead of the one for the actual condition. It's a training issue that needs to be addressed," Randy Sawyer, Contra Costa County's chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer, said in an interview.

The shift superintendent who issued the notification as a test was actually in training, according to Tesoro's preliminary report on the incident.

That worker issued the test notification 12 minutes after the first unit went offline. Flaring and intense smoke spewed from the refinery for 15 minutes after that before the trainee issued a Level 1 Community Warning System alert. Four minutes later, the superintendent issued a Level 2 alert.

"We are aware of the issue in this past week's initial notification and are addressing it internally," Patty Deutsche, a Tesoro spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement. "We absolutely take community notifications seriously and provide complete training to designated personnel."

Tesoro sent a 72-hour report about the incident to the county on Friday afternoon. It describes a chain of events that would eventually cause flaring that released at least 500 pounds of sulfur dioxide into the air.

It may not be known what else was in the plume until the company provides a more detailed investigative report next month.

"There was other stuff that was released and I don't think they know exactly all the gas that was released," Sawyer said.

According to Tesoro's report, a loss of fuel gas caused a boiler unit to stop working. That put a fluid catalytic cracking unit, which helps produce gasoline, offline.

"My biggest thing that raised a flag ... is it looks like the initial cause of the incident was the loss of fuel gas," Sawyer said. "It's something that normally should not happen, and if it does you could have another upset."

In a boiler unit, gas is burned to heat water that produces high-pressure steam. That steam is sent throughout parts of the refinery to drive turbines that power fuel compressors.

"When they lost the steam, their compressors went down," Sawyer said. That allowed lots of pressure to build up inside several units, which caused the facility's safety guards to activate, leading to the flaring.

"The concern whenever you shut down a unit like this, there's always more opportunity for something unexpected to happen where you could have an uncontrolled release," Sawyer said.

The refinery's steam generation system was back online around two hours after the incident began, Deutsche said.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management district launched an investigation into the incident on Tuesday afternoon, said district spokesman Ralph Borrmann.

You can see a rundown of Contra Costa's hazardous materials incident notification policy here.