An incorrect air quality health alert was sent out to west Contra Costa County residents Tuesday afternoon, prompted by flaring at the Chevron refinery in Richmond.
The alert, which was initially sent out by Contra Costa County Health just after 3 p.m, warned residents in the areas that border the refinery, in Richmond and San Pablo, that an incident at the refinery could “affect individuals with respiratory sensitivities.”
“Eye, skin, nose or throat irritation may be possible for some people in the affected area,” the alert read.
Just minutes later, however, the community alert system issued a correction saying that the area was deemed “all clear” and the alert was due to a “mistaken activation” at the refinery.
Chevron has adopted a four-tier system to alert residents about incidents that may impact them, ranging from routine flaring to major emergencies requiring shelter-in-place orders. Contra Costa County classifies the incidents by level from Level 0 to Level 3 and establishes the required public response for each.
Chevron spokesperson Cailin Powell confirmed the correction to Richmondside via email and said that refinery employees are “working quickly to minimize and stop the flaring.”
“A Community Warning System (CWS) Level 2 notification was mistakenly issued which automatically prompted the public advisory,” she said. “A correction has been made.”
Powell added that the mistake was noticed immediately.
“For those who signed up for alerts to their cell phones, the time between the Level 2 notification and the corrected Level 1 notification was 9 minutes,” she added.
Richmondside contacted Contra Costa County Health about the frequency of mistaken alerts but did not hear back Tuesday evening by publication.
Councilmember demands explanation, more clarity
District 6 council member Claudia Jimenez said she would be seeking clarification from the Bay Area Air Quality District on the mistake and questioned the company’s measurements.
“A mistake causes a lot of anxiety in the community,” she said, adding that there are instances where the flaring appears to be excessive to residents, though they are labeled as “Level 1 incidents.”
Jimenez said she would also like more measuring of chemicals like sulfur dioxide which she said aren’t tracked as robustly as other chemicals that are released during flaring.
“There is a need for more information and a more rigorous way of knowing what type of chemicals and releases this type of flaring is, which according to Chevron doesn’t represent any harm to the community,” she said.
Flaring refers to the release and burning of combustible hydrocarbon gases produced during the process of oil refining and is done intentionally to prevent venting, or the direct release of methane into the atmosphere, in order to reduce the risk of it harming people who breathe it, according to Richmondside’s air quality reporting.
The mistaken alert comes a few months after two required semi-annual town halls, the most recent in May, were hosted by Chevron to update residents on flaring incidents at the refinery, as well on as a settlement with the Bay Area Air Quality District last month in which Chevron agreed to enhance “air monitoring data transparency.”
Correction: A previous version of this story said the last town hall hosted by Chevron was in April. It was held on May 13.
