Mitigated Negative Declaration for Chevron Tank Replacements
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Initial Study/ Mitigated Negative Declaration for Chevron Tank Replacements Prepared By: City of Richmond 450 Civic Center Plaza Richmond, California 94804 Contact: Lamont Thompson, Senior Planner (510) 620-6947 Contents 1.0 Summary......................................................................................................................................................1 2.0 Environmental Checklist..............................................................................................................................9 2.1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................9 2.2 Environmental Factors Potentially Affected........................................................................................9 2.3 Determination ....................................................................................................................................10 2.4 Environmental Checklist and Discussion .........................................................................................11 I. AESTHETICS..........................................................................................................................11 II. AGRICULTURE AND FOREST RESOURCES.....................................................................15 III. AIR QUALITY..........................................................................................................................16 IV. BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES..................................................................................................26 V. CULTURAL RESOURCES.....................................................................................................30 VI. GEOLOGY AND SOILS .........................................................................................................32 VII. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS........................................................................................36 VIII. HAZARDS AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS........................................................................37 IX. HYDROLOGY AND WATER QUALITY.................................................................................40 X. LAND USE AND PLANNING .................................................................................................43 XI. MINERAL RESOURCES........................................................................................................44 XII. NOISE .....................................................................................................................................45 XIII. POPULATION AND HOUSING..............................................................................................47 XIV. PUBLIC SERVICES................................................................................................................48 XV. RECREATION.........................................................................................................................50 XVI. TRANSPORTATION/TRAFFIC..............................................................................................52 XVII. UTILITIES AND SERVICE SYSTEMS...................................................................................55 XVIII. MANDATORY FINDINGS OF SIGNIFICANCE.....................................................................57 3.0 Reference...................................................................................................................................................67 List of Appendices Appendix A Air Emissions Calculations Appendix B List of Projects Considered in Cumulative Impacts Analysis Appendix C Technical Memo on HRA for 12 Tanks Appendix D Biological Resources Assessment for the Proposed Firewater Tank Appendix E WSA Traffic Impact Analysis i List of Tables Table 1-1 Summary of Chevron Richmond Refinery Replacement and New Tanks ....................................6 Table 1-2 Tank Construction Schedule in Months ..........................................................................................7 Table 2-1 BAAQMD CEQA Significance Thresholds for Individual Projects Adopted June 2, 2010..........18 Table 2-2 Construction/Demolition Emissions and New Tanks....................................................................19 Table 2-3 Operations Emissions Associated with the Replacement and New Tanks .................................21 Table 2-4 Federal, State, and CNPS-Listed Special-Status Plant Species with the Potential to Occur in the Vicinity of the Project ................................................................................................27 Table 2-5 Federal and State Special-Status Animal Species with the Potential to Occur in the Vicinity of the Project .....................................................................................................................27 Table 2-6 Summary of Chevron Richmond Refinery Project Construction Related Vehicle Trips..............53 List of Figures Figure 1-1 New Tank Locations ........................................................................................................................8 Figure 2-1 Viewpoint Locations for Chevron Tank Simulations .....................................................................13 Figure 2-2 Crest Avenue Viewpoint – Existing Conditions.............................................................................14 Figure 2-3 Crest Avenue Viewpoint – Stimulation with Labels ......................................................................14 Figure 2-4 Buena Vista Avenue Viewpoint – Existing Conditions .................................................................14 Figure 2-5 Buena Vista Avenue Viewpoint – Simulation with Labels ............................................................14 Figure 2-6 Richmond San Rafael Bridge Viewpoint – Existing Conditions ...................................................15 Figure 2-7 Richmond San Rafael Bridge Viewpoint – Simulation .................................................................15 ii 1.0 Summary Description of Proposed Action The Chevron Richmond Refinery (Refinery) is a petroleum refinery in Richmond, California that currently operates approximately 300 tanks to handle various raw materials, intermediates, by-products, and final petroleum products. The aggregate capacity of all petroleum tanks is approximately 16,000,000 barrels. In addition there are numerous other tanks, generally smaller in size, used for storage of various treatment chemicals, wastewater, firewater, and other water streams. In general, Refinery tanks are designed and maintained to Chevron and industry consensus standards such as those from the American Petroleum Institute, Codes of Management Practices of the Chemical Manufacturers; American National Standards Institute B31.1: Power Piping; American National Standards Institute B13.3: Petroleum Refinery Piping; National Fire Prevention Association 30; and the Uniform Building Codes. Such design standards are routinely evaluated and revised as necessary to improve safety and reliability. Whenever new facilities are built, they must meet these improved design codes and industry standards. Environmental regulations, primarily from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) or the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) require new tanks to meet lower emission levels of organic vapors especially for materials that have higher vapor pressures (such as gasoline). Additionally, oil spill prevention regulations under the federal regulations (Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 112), and the California Aboveground Petroleum Storage Act (Health and Safety Code, Division 20, Chapter 6.67) require secondary containment and other spill prevention measures for petroleum storage tanks. To ensure the proper storage and handling of petroleum products, Refinery tanks are inspected in accordance with industry codes, including the American Petroleum Institute Standard 653 (API-653), “Tank Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and Reconstruction.” To accomplish certain inspections required by this standard, tanks must be taken out of service on a periodic basis, cleaned, and inspected internally. Routine repairs will be made during this time and additional repairs may be made depending on the results of the inspections. Such cleaning, inspection, and repairs may take 6 to 12 months to complete. At some point, a tank will reach its end-of-life, and will then be permanently removed from service. Under normal circumstances, the Refinery has about one tank under construction at all times in order to comply with legally-required tank inspection and maintenance schedules, end-of-life tank replacements, and changes in tank service. However, Chevron has not built any new tanks at the Refinery in over five years. New tanks are needed to allow certain tanks to be removed from service for legally-required inspections and to replace several tanks that have already been removed from service. Accordingly, Chevron plans to replace five existing petroleum storage tanks with five newly constructed tanks. The summary of the tank changes is provided below in Table 1-1. In addition, to improve fire response capabilities to meet California Fire Code requirements, Chevron plans to construct a new firewater tank in the Quarry Tank Field. The firewater tank will be situated on an elevated site above the Quarry Tank Field to gravity feed firewater to the Quarry Tank Field in order to improve firefighting