California’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) last week approved a plan to cut emissions from oil refineries in nine counties by 20% over the next five years. The district said its staff evaluated a range of approaches against a variety of factors, including criteria pollutants, toxics and greenhouse gases, to determine the best way to reduce refinery emissions.
BAAQMD said it would investigate significant sources at refineries and pursue a variety of additional pollution controls at those sources. New rules will be added to rulemaking currently underway that addresses sulfur dioxide emissions from coke calciners and particulate matter from cat crackers. BAAQMD will also require reductions of toxic emissions from key refinery sources such as cooling towers and coking units. The toxic emissions approach will include site-wide health risk assessments and the identification of sources for further emissions controls.
The district will also track emissions reductions at refineries under California’s cap and trade system and require refiners to periodically evaluate the sources of the majority of their emissions to determine if more controls are needed.
The district said it would implement the new program by developing a package of rules in 2015. The new rules will affect five Bay Area refineries owned by Chevron, Shell, Valero, Phillips 66 and Tesoro.
SEE ALSO: Change in the wind for air compliance during SSM activities
