Chevron Gets Waste Permit, but Study Ordered

Chevron won a key fight this week over whether its El Segundo oil refinery should continue discharging treated waste water into the ocean within 300 feet of shore. But the battle is far from over.

Chevron’s victory came Monday, when the State Regional Water Quality Control Board, over the objections of environmentalists, approved a five-year permit allowing the refinery to send 7.9 million gallons of waste water daily into Santa Monica Bay.

But the board also ordered Chevron to further study how the waste water affects nearby surfing and swimming spots and how much it would cost the oil company to extend its ocean disposal pipe farther into the bay.

That guarantees more jousting between environmentalists, who contend that discharges so close to shore pose a public health threat, and Chevron, which says there is no cause for concern.

“The fundamental issue is whether there’s an impact (on human health), and the answer is no,” said Chevron spokesman Rod Spackman, who accuses environmentalists of spreading misinformation in the absence of scientific evidence to support their case. “There’s a political agenda here.”

Said Tim Hunter of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental group composed of surfers: “When you’re paddling out there and whack the water, it fizzes and you get this overwhelming petroleum smell. I get nauseous just going near that pipe.”

Members of the water quality panel, meanwhile, say they decided to renew Chevron’s permit partly because studies already conducted by Chevron show no evidence of a health risk to humans. But that stance could change in light of the new report, which is expected to take about nine months to complete.

“Though their permit has a five-year life, this issue can be reopened at any time if there’s good justification to do it,” Board Chairwoman Nan Drake said.

At issue is ocean-bound waste water that includes oil-tainted water from the refining process. Under its new five-year permit, Chevron must obey strict new standards to ensure intensive treatment of the waste water before it reaches the bay.

Water quality regulators say the company has already gone a long way toward meeting those requirements by installing a new treatment plant after being cited numerous times for environmental violations in the mid-1980s.

Environmentalists acknowledge this, but they assert the location of the discharges, just north of the popular El Porto swimming and surfing area, makes the waste water intolerable nonetheless. The new permit, they point out, still allows Chevron to send an average of 649 pounds of oil and grease and small amounts of heavy metal pollutants into the water each day.

Some environmentalists criticized the board for not requiring Chevron to extend its underwater disposal line as a condition for granting the new permit. Said Hunter of the Surfrider Foundation: “I thought the regional board really weenied out.”

But others were pleased that the board ordered further studies, leaving open the possibility of future regulatory action.

“We have cautious optimism,” said Mark Gold, a biologist with the Santa Monica group Heal the Bay. “We were very happy to see that the board was listening to our concerns.”

Gold, who calls Chevron’s previous health-risk study inadequate, says the water board has invited environmental groups to comment on how the new study should be carried out. Board officials say they expect two issues to be addressed in the study, to be performed by an independent consultant hired by Chevron.

One is how the oil company could dispose of its waste water farther from shore. This means exploring such options as extending the underwater disposal line to a length of 2,000 feet or rerouting the waste water to a longer line operated by the nearby Hyperion sewage treatment plant in Playa del Rey.

The other, more immediate part of the study will involve thoroughly mapping the area where Chevron’s waste water first mixes with seawater, the so-called zone of initial dilution. Environmentalists say that if that zone is shown to include waters used by numerous bathers and surfers, the water board should order Chevron to stop releasing waste water near shore.

“That would mean that people are swimming and surfing in very poorly diluted effluent,” Gold said.

Chevron’s Spackman says his company will fund the new study in good faith. But he calls the zone of initial dilution issue a “red herring,” charging that environmentalists raised it because they could not present the board with evidence that Chevron’s waste water threatens human health.

“This issue came up at the last minute,” Spackman said. “I believe that it will be quickly demonstrated that it is not a substantive issue.”

Board staff members say they have not determined whether largely undiluted waste water drifting into heavily used recreational waters would constitute grounds for forcing Chevron to discharge farther from shore. State law does not directly address the subject, they say.

But some board members indicate they would be uncomfortable condoning such a situation.

Said board member John Slezak: “If (poorly diluted) waste water is where people are in the water, that’s something I feel uneasy about, and I think a few other board members feel the same way.”