Evergreen Oil Outlines Preparation for Plant Reopening

As Evergreen Oil prepares to reopen a portion of its Newark refinery after a fire shuttered it nearly five months ago, company officials are working to repair the facility and their relationship with the surrounding community.
 
Evergreen organized a public meeting at the on Tuesday evening to update the community on what the re-refinery and hazardous waste company has done since the to improve safety and prevent the continued leakage of foul-smelling gas odors.
 
Plant manager Bob Gwaltney said the two-alarm fire that injured one employee was caused by a thinning pipe, which ruptured and leaked oil. Since then, 200 feet of pipeline have been replaced using stainless steel, a material less subject to corrosion, he said.
 
Gwaltney also said recurring odors from the plant stem from the high sulphur content in the gas and have several causes — leaks in the gas piping system, vapors that escape during truck and rail car loading and other "upsets in the operation of the plant."
 
The company has received frequent odors complaints since its inception in 1986, prompting a number of citations and fines from county, regional and state agencies over the years totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

Before the fire, Evergreen had been cited numerous times for odor complaints as recently as February of this year.
 
"We have made some mistakes, and frankly, some mistakes we're not proud of," Gwaltney said. "This event really served as a wake-up call for everyone at Evergreen. How we've operated in the last 25 years is not how we want to operate in the next 25 years."
 
Gwaltney said they are now conducting regular emissions testing, have upgraded the vapor recovery system which vacuums up escaping gas during truck loading, and require plant operators to complete a combined total of 3,200 hours of training and testing.

In addition, the company is now implementing procedures in line with Cal/OSHA's Process Safety Management standard for refineries, which it was not following previously because past Evergreen leadership claimed the company was exempt.
 
But several residents at Tuesday's meeting said they were skeptical Evergreen will really clean up its act. 

Mark and Sue Wadkins said they have lived in their Newark home for 18 years and this summer was their first that they were able to enjoy being outside in their backyard without worrying about odors from the plant. 

Mark Wadkins said the smells have already picked back up since the plant began testing its equipment a couple weeks ago.

"I want the jobs, I want the tax revenues for Newark, but you need to be accountable," Sue Wadkins said, adding that it's been several years since she has called about the odor because her complaints were not taken seriously. "If we say there's an odor, we're not lying. Why would we lie about a horrible odor?"

Gwaltney conceded that Evergreen's previous management did not make safety and health issues a top priority, but said today's leadership is different. He said the company is now open to shutting down operations to investigate any odor complaints and would send an employee out into the neighborhood to address the concern.

At one point during the meeting Thomas Slater rose from his chair to tell the audience he has been with the company for the last 20 years, and once feared for his job if he complained about Evergreen leadership's response to odor complaints or other safety violations. Now, under Gwaltney — who has been with Evergreen for a year — he was promoted to operations manager.

"We are more focused on safety and compliance than we ever have before," he said. "We will improve."

Councilwoman Ana Apodaca also attended the meeting, saying she has smelled the odors and urged residents to contact not only Evergreen and the appropriate authorities about the any future airborne odor but city council members and the city manager's office as well.  

City staff must inspect the plant once final repairs and construction are finished this week before they approves the reopening of the re-refinery station known as "Train 2."

Evergreen is also waiting on approval from several public agencies, including Alameda County Fire Department, Alameda County Department of Environmental Health, Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Cal/OSHA.
 
The company must still make repairs before it reopens Train 1, which sustained most of the damage in the plant fire.

Evergreen's other operations — used oil collection, wastewater treatment and solid waste treatment — weren't affected by the fire and have continued since the incident. 

Last month Cal/OSHA fined Evergreen about $22,000 for the fire. Gwaltney the company planned to appeal the citation to contest the amount of the fine, but instead Evergreen negotiated to have three "serious" citations reclassified as "general" citations, Gwaltney said Tuesday.

While the company waits for regulatory approval of its re-refinery operation, staff will continue their community outreach.

Evergreen published its first public newsletter this month and Gwaltney said he was open to suggestions brought forth on Tuesday, from maintaining an email list to website improvements to organizing a citizens' oversight commission in conjunction with the city. Read that newsletter by .