Oil Refinery Revival Fuels Worries in Santa Fe Springs

For years, the Powerine oil refinery in Santa Fe Springs drew heavy fines from air pollution agencies and a litany of complaints from neighbors. Residents said fumes from the 62-year-old plant burned their eyes and caused painful rashes.

But since financial problems forced owners to wind down operations three years ago, neighbors say they have enjoyed a respite.

That is about to change, some residents and environmentalists warn. The plant is scheduled to resume full operations sometime next year under the aegis of televangelist and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson.

CENCO Refining Co.--controlled by the Robertson Charitable Trust--bought the plant in August. It’s the same company that tried unsuccessfully to reopen an oil platform off Huntington Beach. J. Nelson Happy, CENCO’s chief executive officer, said the company plans about $20 million in upgrades to make the plant one of the safest and cleanest in the region.

“It’s going to be the leader in safety and environmental compliance,” Happy said, adding that the plant’s prior problems stemmed from its owner’s financial trouble. “We want to be good neighbors.”

But some residents say this is one revival they don’t want to witness. They question whether an aging refinery with a history of pollution problems has any place in an urban community.

“Just when we start to get better air and are able to open our windows, we hear that this hulking dinosaur is going to be open again,” said James Flores, who lives downwind from the plant. “It’s horrific. It’s really being done without conscience, without concern for the welfare of the community.”

The opponents are hoping to emulate Huntington Beach, which this month forced CENCO to withdraw plans to reopen the offshore platform that was the site of the 1990 American Trader oil spill.

CENCO had originally proposed pumping oil from the Huntington Beach platform to the Santa Fe Springs refinery.

But the City Council voted in September to sue CENCO if it did not drop the plan to ship crude through the city.

Huntington Beach opponents said the plan would have had a tanker unload every eight days, which was four times as often as under the previous operations. The terminal, off Newland Street, has been shut for several years.

The 1990 spill was Orange County’s worst environmental disaster. The American Trader ran over its anchor while moored, puncturing its hull and spewing crude oil that blackened county beaches for weeks.

City officials also argued that the project would adversely affect air quality through refinery emissions and truck exhaust.

CENCO now expects to use pipelines and terminals in Long Beach to feed the Santa Fe Springs refinery.

The cold, gray towers and rust-streaked tanks at the 75-acre refinery provide a lonely reminder of how oil once dominated the area’s landscape. More than 2,000 wells dotted the area after the discovery of oil in the 1920s.

But decades later, heavy industry and then commercial developments moved in as the oil ran out. Today, Santa Fe Springs is a blue-collar town of 16,000 residents, and Powerine overlooks a city of squat warehouses, offices and single-family homes.

Robertson plans to fire up the 50,000-barrel-a-day plant to break into the California gasoline market. Purchase and start-up costs will reach about $200 million. Once running, Happy said, the plant will help produce cheaper, environmentally safe fuel for California consumers, with plenty of benefits for Santa Fe Springs.

The company predicts the venture will create at least 350 jobs and provide the city with $500,000 in annual property taxes. Most refinery profits will fund evangelical and charitable work by the Robertson trust, Happy said.

But opposition is mounting. Though some residents remain unconcerned about the reopening, others say the refinery’s troubled history means it deserves to remain closed.

Over the last decade, government agencies levied fines totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars for pollution at Powerine. Neighbors complained that plant emissions speckled their cars. Prevailing winds, they said, regularly wafted a stench like rotten eggs.