Chevron fire: Leno wants Cal/OSHA audit

Jaxon Van Derbeken

Updated 9:39 p.m., Friday, September 7, 2012

State Sen. Mark Leno says he wants to make sure Cal/OSHA has enough resources to oversee workplace safety conditions at the state's oil refineries. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press / SF
A state senator called Friday for an audit of the agency that oversees workplace safety in California oil refineries, after a Chronicle investigation revealed that regulators have not been performing the intensive inspections called for under federal guidelines.
State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chairman of the Senate's budget committee, said he was concerned that the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health was conducting only limited planned inspections and imposing virtually no fines for the few violations it detects at the state's 15 refineries.
Among those refineries is Chevron's Richmond plant, which was badly damaged in an Aug. 6 fire that ignited after hydrocarbon vapor leaked from a pipe that may have been corroded. Cal/OSHA had conducted three planned inspections at the refinery since 2006 and found no workplace safety violations.
The inspections averaged 50 man-hours, far less than the 1,000 hours that federal inspectors typically spent on refinery checks during a recent crackdown on safety violations in other states. Cal/OSHA enforces both state and federal workplace safety rules in California.
The lack of fines against Chevron was typical of Cal/OSHA's inspections. Of the more than two dozen planned inspections that the agency carried out over the past decade, none resulted in a fine being collected from a major oil company.
"The recent explosion at Chevron's Richmond refinery was a serious wake-up call," Leno said.
He said he wants to make sure Cal/OSHA has enough resources to oversee the industry. He noted that a spokesman had defended the agency's efforts by pointing to the fact that no one has died in a refinery accident in California since 1999.
"That's setting the bar rather low," Leno said. "Given the ongoing environmental concerns and health degradation, whether someone dies or not is not a determinant for safety for me."
He said the state auditor's office should review the oversight program.
"I want to know if there are any best practices that can be taken from other states," Leno said. "If it's a lack of resources, industry-paid fees should be reviewed to see if they are paying what is required to make sure these facilities operate safely."
Cal/OSHA spokesman Dean Fryer said, "We share Sen. Leno's concern for the safety of refinery workers and the well-being of the neighboring communities. We will cooperate fully with Sen. Leno to address worker safety concerns as part of his proposed audit."
The chief of the agency, Ellen Widess, has said post-accident investigations and complaint probes that her regulators conduct, coupled with the planned inspections, were enough to ensure that refineries are safe places to work.
Leno, however, noted that one of those post-accident investigations - a Cal/OSHA probe of a 2007 fire at the Chevron Richmond refinery that badly burned a worker - resulted in a fine of just $185.
"That's a major red flag," he said. "There is absolutely no deterrence whatsoever - it means absolutely nothing."
Jaxon Van Derbeken is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com

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