Federal, state and local agencies are continuing to investigate a spill from a wharf at Chevron’s Richmond refinery that spread for several miles across San Francisco Bay, prompted a health advisory for nearby residents and led to the closure of a local beach.
Officials said Wednesday that oily liquid spilled from a pipeline on the Long Wharf, which extends 4,000 feet into the bay from the refinery complex.
In a brief incident report, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said refinery officials were alerted to a sheen on the water at 2:32 p.m. Tuesday by someone from the local community. The substance was spurting from a quarter-inch hole in the pipeline and continued leaking for as long as two and a half hours before the line was clamped shut.
Contra Costa County officials issued a temporary advisory, warning residents of Richmond, North Richmond and San Pablo who have “respiratory sensitivities” to stay indoors. Health authorities lifted the advisory at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Helicopter and drone video showed the sheen from the spill spread more than a mile along the Point Richmond shoreline by nightfall Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, responding agencies said the sheen was visible in the water from Point Molate to Brooks Island, a distance of about four miles.
The spill prompted East Bay Regional Park District to close Keller Beach at Point Richmond’s Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline. The beach remained closed Wednesday afternoon.
Chevron, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, the U.S. Coast Guard and Contra Costa County health officials are working to contain the spill.
A Fish and Wildlife spokesman, Eric Laughlin, said crews have not yet observed any oiled wildlife. Laughlin said crews were trying to prevent oil from reaching some of the area’s more ecologically sensitive sites, including at least one that houses eelgrass beds.
Nearly 24 hours after the incident began, it was still unclear exactly what kind of material spilled or how much had leaked into bay waters.
In public statements Tuesday, Chevron described the oily liquid as “hydrocarbons.” In its preliminary report to the state’s hazardous materials spill database, the company said a “mixture of recovered oil and gasoline” was leaking from a pipeline on the refinery wharf at a rate of 5 gallons a minute.
A later statement from the “unified command” of Chevron and government agencies said “the line in question is used to transport a variety of oil and products that are returned to the refinery for reprocessing.”
The unified command did not offer an estimate for how much of the liquid had spilled. Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, whose district includes the refinery and surrounding neighborhoods, said on Twitter about 600 gallons had spilled.
Whatever the precise composition of the oily liquid, it smelled bad. Though both the air district and county health authorities said ground-level monitors had picked up no elevated levels of air pollution, there were at least two public complaints about the spill’s odor.
San Francisco Baykeeper, which has long advocated for stronger environmental protections for the bay, says Chevron’s initial efforts to control the spill were weak.
“Chevron’s initial response to contain the spill was pathetic,” said the group’s executive director, Sejal Choksi-Chugh.
She said spills like Tuesday’s “add life threatening exposure to toxic pollutants” for nearby residents.
“The people of Richmond already carry a disproportionate environmental burden,” Choksi-Chugh said.
“The whole area smells like a gas station. And then there’s the possibility of long-term, unknown damage to the bay itself, and to all the wildlife that depend on it,” she said.
Copyright 2021 KQED