Local News in Brief : Consultant’s Study on Refinery Rejected
The Torrance City Council has unanimously refused to accept a consultant’s study that blames lax management for safety problems at the troubled Mobil Oil refinery.
Officials said errors in the report need to be corrected and more information provided before it is presented to the city. “The report was flawed by discrepancies that need to be ironed out,” Mayor Katy Geissert said.
The $88,000 study, prepared by Gage-Babcock & Associates and Mittelhauser Corp., said the number of safety incidents at the refinery is too high. Explosions, fires and accidents at the refinery have claimed three lives in the last two years.
Mobil officials complained that the report grossly understated the number of disciplinary actions refinery officials had taken against employees. It also did not take into consideration a major construction project when comparing the number of incidents at Mobil to the safety record of other Los Angeles area refineries, Mobil said.
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