Official Urges Updated Study on Impact of Asphalt Plant

Carson City Atty. Glenn Watson disclosed Friday that he plans to recommend that the city prepare an updated environmental impact report on a controversial asphalt plant under construction at the Fletcher Oil refinery.

Watson’s recommendation, which will be made to the City Council at its June 6 meeting, comes weeks after neighborhood activists demanded that the city study the potential environmental consequences of the refinery project.

Construction is three-quarters complete on a $16-million vacuum distillation unit that will allow the refinery to produce the petroleum base for asphalt instead of a high-sulfur fuel oil for ships.

Leaders of the residential neighborhood next to the southwest Carson refinery have complained bitterly at recent council meetings that the asphalt project, storage tanks and related facilities were not studied in a 1978 environmental impact report on Fletcher’s expansion plans.

They have demanded that the project not be allowed to proceed until an updated environmental impact report is prepared. And they contend that a conditional-use permit for the overall expansion project expired in 1981.

At first, Watson was cool to the idea of an updated environmental impact report, suggesting earlier this month that it would be “just reading material.”

‘Focused’ Report

But in an interview Friday, Watson said he now favors “a focused environmental impact report that deals squarely with the conversion” from fuel oil to asphalt production.

“In view of the complaints in the neighborhood focusing on air emissions, traffic and fumes, I’m recommending an updated environmental impact report,” Watson said.

He said such a report would have “public relations value” and would provide the city with some legal protection.

The city of Carson was the lead agency in preparing the original environmental impact report and issuing a conditional-use permit in 1978.

Yet, in a recent letter to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the city sought to shift responsibility for issuance of permits to the AQMD.

The letter, signed by the entire City Council, said the city is “deeply concerned about the air quality impacts of the refinery expansion.”

The council said the AQMD issued permits for construction of the vacuum distillation unit and associated equipment, including asphalt storage tanks, even though the project was not examined in the original environmental study.

“We are informed,” the council wrote, “that the product to be processed and produced by the unit and the other equipment is not the product considered when the EIR was approved. . . . “

The letter also notes that the Fletcher expansion is different from that described in the original environmental report. The council also said other changes have taken place in the immediate area since the report was written more than a decade ago, including expansion of the nearby Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts plant and the Carver Greenfield Sludge Treatment Facility.

The city asked the AQMD to respond to a series of procedural questions and provide documentation of air pollution citations issued to Fletcher since 1982.

AQMD spokesman Bill Kelly said a written response is being prepared.

Kelly said the AQMD issued permits to construct the vacuum unit because the expected air emissions are below the threshold for the full review required for new pollution sources. He said the vacuum unit is expected to produce 32 pounds of hydrocarbons per day, while related equipment will generate 30 pounds of nitrogen oxides and 40 pounds of sulfur oxides daily.

The AQMD had “no legal basis for denying a permit,” Kelly said. “We can’t deny someone a permit (just) because someone in the neighborhood doesn’t want to see a facility built or expanded.”

Neighborhood activist Barbara Post said the project should not proceed until an updated environmental report is complete.

Post also said the conditional-use permit issued by the city of Carson to Fletcher in September, 1978, has expired.

One of the conditions on the project states that “the applicant shall complete all requirements of this permit within a three-year period from the date of the approval, i.e. Sept. 5, 1981.”

Post said: “It’s all there in black and white.”

But Watson said the conditional-use permit did not have a time limit on it. He said the three-year limit referred only to requirements for fire hydrants, landscaping and other aspects of the project. “Those requirements should have been accomplished,” he said.

Watson said it was clear from the beginning that the project would be built in phases over a period of years.

Not Being Enlarged

In a recent letter to city officials, Fletcher Oil President Mark G. Newgard wrote that the company is not enlarging its refining capacity.

“We are simply making a relatively small change in the products which are made,” Newgard wrote. “The new (vacuum process unit) will enable us to make either asphalt or (high sulfur fuel oil), but there will be no increase in the total volume of products produced.”

Larry Fisher, a public relations consultant for Fletcher Oil, said the project was begun several years ago by the former owner of the refinery. “They took out the permits and got a portion of the work under way but were unable for fiscal reasons to complete it.”

The refinery, located between Figueroa and Main streets near the Harbor Freeway, emerged from bankruptcy proceedings last year and was purchased by Pauley Petroleum Inc.

Fisher said the 26,500 barrel-a-day refinery is operating properly. He predicted that air quality “will be better than it is now” when the work is complete.

But Post is not convinced. “I’m real skeptical of it,” she said.