The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) recently issued a notice about another unplanned flaring event at the Torrance Refinery, containing the following SCAQMD Link. According to the website, an Unplanned Event is used for emergencies caused by equipment failure, power outage, or other unanticipated event which requires the refinery to dispose of the gases in order to prevent harm to workers, the community, or to the environment
The AQMD notice contained a link to a list of all the flaring events at the Torrance Refinery (Scroll down to Past Flare Events and click in the Event ID box to display newest first). They show that, so far this year, there have been 6 Planned and 12 Unplanned events. That means that there averages more than one emergency every month at this refinery!
With a safety record like this, how can we feel safe living so near, when they use massive quantities of the deadly hydrogen fluoride (HF)? There were 5 small HF releases between 2017 and 2019. The AQMD has not revealed how many HF releases have occur in the last 3 years. Why not?
Torrance Refinery Action Alliance 