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E-mail StoryLois Henry: Refinery should have laid out all options for expansion
| Tuesday, Jul 1 2008 5:51 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Jul 2 2008 7:25 AM
Well, well, well.
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Turns out all the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over whether it would be worse to choke on a cloud of modified hydrofluoric acid or a cloud of sulfuric acid may have been all for naught.
According to the latest environmental document on the proposed expansion of the Big West of California refinery on Rosedale Highway, there’s another refining option that uses no acid.
Huh. Isn’t that interesting?
I wondered why that option, being called Alternative D, hadn’t been put on the table in the first place.
I asked Gene Cotten, the vice president of refining at Big West.
He told me Big West still believes modified hydrofluoric acid (HF) is the best alternative for their project, but they wanted to give the Kern County Board of Supervisors a look at all the options out there.
OK, then why wasn’t Alternative D in the first EIR?
Pause.
“I guess we were a little ... caught unaware on the uproar that would be generated,” he said.
An understatement if ever I heard one.
The only downside to Alternative D, from the refinery’s perspective, is that it’s more expensive than modified HF and doesn’t produce as valuable a product. Alternative D will produce gasoline and diesel but not alkalyte, a blending component for cleaner burning fuels.
Will it still do the job? I asked.
“It provides an alternative avenue,” Cotten said.
Translation: Yes.
I’ve said before that I favor the Big West expansion. I still do.
But these little “informational lapses” can’t continue if refinery officials want to gain the public’s trust and approval of their project.
Though Cotten told me Big West presented Alternative D to the county, it was only after the county Planning Department pushed them relentlessly to find more options than the two nasty acids we’ve been arguing over for months.
County planners gave Big West credit for coming up with Alternative D.
But why did it take more than a year and a whole lot of community strife before Alternative D surfaced?
Here’s why. Big West is in business to make money. OK, nothing illegal about that. But they were apparently so attached to the cheaper HF or modified HF options that they dragged the process out, eroding the public’s trust and threatening their own deadlines for taking advantage of EPA air credits.
Despite the turmoil, I do think this was ultimately a healthy process.
For example, one of the best ideas in the EIR includes a zone change proposed by the Planning Department that will force Big West to come to the Board of Supervisors for any substantive future changes to the refinery. That means increased public scrutiny.
Another is a requirement that Big West install real-time video cameras that will feed to a public Web site, increase notification to local agencies if there’s a spill or leak of any kind and place sensors at nearby businesses to detect any gases being released.
That will make refinery operations more open to the public and the public will be more aware of what’s cooking over there.
Since the 1930s, the refinery has been a fixture in this community.
It needs to be a member of the community as well.
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com.