Chevron has agreed to pay the Bay Area Air District $900,000 to settle allegations that it failed to properly monitor air pollution emissions at its refinery in Richmond, the district announced Tuesday.
The air district — formerly known as the Bay Area Air Quality Management District — said Chevron missed deadlines to make necessary upgrades to a new air monitoring network, so it issued nine notices of violation.
The air district had required Chevron to install sensors to create a continuous emissions monitoring system (CEMS), which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says measures the concentration of gas, particulate matter or emissions.
The air district said Chevron’s CES, which has been mandatory since the 1990s, wasn’t equipped to capture excess emissions during process upsets such as startup, shutdown or equipment malfunction, which is when flaring typically occurs. Aid district auditors discovered the lapse beginning in January 2022 and issued violation notices as recently as January 2024.
But an audit found that 20 of Chevron’s air pollution monitors were “not properly configured to detect the full range of potential emissions and were limited in how much emissions they could measure,” the air district said.
If the sensors are not calibrated correctly, emissions can increase beyond legal — and safe — limits, and make real-time impacts on air quality difficult to gauge, according to the air district.
Under the agreement signed Tuesday, in addition to paying $900,000, Chevron was required to install and operate properly functioning CEMS at multiple locations at the Richmond refinery, and to notify the air district anytime the sensors detect pollutant levels above pre-determined limits, referred to in the agreement as a “pegging event.”
“Requiring Chevron to install and maintain its own monitors provides additional emissions data and further supports compliance and transparency,” Dr. Philip Fine, executive officer of the air district, said in a statement. “Chevron’s upgrades to its monitoring systems are an important step toward strengthened accountability and accessible information for the communities surrounding the refinery.”
The latest settlement brings Chevron Richmond’s total penalties paid to the air district over the last decade to over $13 million for more than a thousand violation notices, several dozen of which remain pending, according to air district records obtained by Richmondside.
Chevron: ‘This comes at high cost with little benefit’
Caitlin Powell, a Chevron Richmond spokesperson, said the CEMS are separate from the fenceline and community air monitors it maintains and whose readings it displays publicly at richmondairmonitoring.org.
“We believe the existing monitors were sufficient and any potential instances of noncompliance with monitoring requirements were reported to the Air District,” Powell said in a statement. “While we agree data and transparency is a good thing, this comes at high cost with little benefit.”
This wasn’t the first time the Chevron refinery — Richmond’s single greatest source of air pollution — has been behind on setting up a required air monitoring system.
Chevron first agreed to set up fenceline air monitors in a community agreement in 2008 when it was planning to expand its hydrogen plant.
In an interview with Richmondside, Don Gamiles — CEO of Argos Scientific, the company hired to create the fenceline monitor network — said the plans for that system sat dormant until after a devastating explosion and fire at the refinery in 2012 sent thousands of people to the hospital.
Since then, flaring — or the intentional burning of dangerous gasses by industrial facilities like refineries — has become a daily occurrence at the Chevron refinery, according to air district records.
Local environmental activists have been critical of Chevron’s fenceline air reporting system — now operated by Sonoma Technology — saying they distrust the data that’s reported.
In its statement, Chevron said the additional monitoring now being required “is a local example of the type of excessive regulatory action that is driving up costs in California.”
In August 2024, Chevron cited the high cost of doing business in California as one reason for moving its corporate headquarters from eastern Contra Costa County to Texas, while announcing layoffs in the Bay Area. Chevron executives have also raised the cost issue in recent months, saying that ceasing operations entirely in California is not out of the question.
Besides regularly paying fines to settle violations with the air district, Chevron has agreed to pay the city of Richmond $550 million over the next decade to avoid higher taxes on refinery operations in the city. More recently, the city accidentally disclosed to Richmondside that Chevron’s taxes make up nearly 24% of the city’s general fund.
Richmond deserves clear and accurate information about how Chevron Richmond operates. This article, and many of the previous articles it references, on air monitoring and flaring at the Chevron Richmond Refinery left out important context about our compliance efforts and the systems we have in place to protect the community.
We understand that air quality is a top concern for Richmond residents, and it’s a priority for us too. Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) data is, and has been, reported to the Bay Area Air District (Air District) monthly. Any instances of potential noncompliance with emission limits or monitoring requirements were also previously reported to the Air District. For example, if the monitors were being adjusted for maintenance and in that process, the monitor registered the maximum value in its measurement range, even for just a few minutes, we would report that instance to the Air District.
We support transparency, but maintaining a new set of redundant monitors that goes beyond federal requirements adds little benefit. This is about adding more monitoring, not reducing emissions. We do not agree with excessive regulatory action that drives up costs without improving environmental outcomes.
Regarding Air District Notices of Violation (NOVs), many are administrative and stem from delays in the Air District’s own permitting process. For example, there are some cases where Chevron has been waiting for years for an updated permit from the Air District to clarify issues. In the meantime, NOVs are issued for being deemed out of compliance with the original permit. We cannot control the Air District’s approval timing, but we remain committed to working with regulators to improve efficiency.
Additionally, flaring events are not a daily occurrence at our refinery. The Hydrogen Plant flare is different from other flares. It has a visible flame as part of its standby operation which is necessary to meet certain U.S. EPA and Air District requirements, such as Air District Rule 13-15 which requires a flare or other device to limit methane emissions from hydrogen plants. A continuous vent gas flow to the Hydrogen Plant flare does not mean a flaring event is taking place. Compared to other process flares, emissions from the Hydrogen Plant flare are very low because it combusts gas that is mostly hydrogen and natural gas.
We know our community is concerned about flaring. That is why we have invested over $25 million in efforts to reduce flaring. We increased operator training, improved infrastructure, and installed new technology. As a result, in a one-year period we reduced the duration of flaring incidents by 41 percent. We have also increased our efforts to educate the community about flaring through community meetings, additional online resources, and Spanish translations.
Finally, the community and fenceline air monitoring system we fund is run by an expert third party with more than 40 years of experience designing and implementing air monitoring programs all over the world. The comprehensive, real-time monitoring system utilizes state-of-the-art technology to measure, analyze, and report air quality information to the public.
An initial community benefits agreement with the City of Richmond regarding the community air monitoring program was set aside due to litigation on the related refinery project. We remained committed to getting it done and included it in a subsequent agreement. Establishing these sites in concert with the community is a complex, highly technical, and time-intensive process. For context, in 2016 the Air District implemented a new fee to establish their own community air monitoring sites near refineries. Nearly 10 years later, millions in fees have been collected, and the first site was established by the Air District just last year.
We are proud to be the first Bay Area refinery with a community ambient air monitoring program. In fact, while the Air District only requires one community monitor to be operated, Chevron made the decision to maintain three community air monitoring sites in addition to the now required fenceline monitoring systems.
Chevron Richmond is committed to improving transparency and engagement with the community. We invite you to learn more about our operations on our website (richmond.chevron.com) or follow us on Facebook.